Torrents Time Lets Anyone Launch Their Own Web Version of Popcorn Time 144
An anonymous reader writes: Popcorn Time, an app for streaming video torrents, just got its own web version: Popcorn Time Online. Unlike other attempts to bring Popcorn Time into the browser, this one is powered by a tool called Torrents Time, which delivers the movies and TV shows via an embedded torrent client. Oh, and the developers have released the code so that anyone can create their own version. If Popcorn Time is Hollywood's worst nightmare, Torrents Time is trying to make sure Hollywood can't wake up.
Hollywood proposed alternative sign (Score:5, Funny)
Jail Time
No use fighting it (Score:5, Interesting)
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I agree that they will never end "piracy".
However, I am not certain that they cannot end the easy participation of the average user in the process.
There will always be a guy selling DVDs on the corner, frequently backed up by organized crime. I'm not so certain that people who are less committed to that lifestyle will be always there and impossible to stop. That ease of participation relies on freedoms are now taken for granted which I feel may well become very eroded in the future.
Re:No use fighting it (Score:5, Insightful)
Movie companies would do a much better job if they stopped trying to squash any sort of piracy, and focused more on providing what people want, in the form they want, when they want it, at a convenient price.
There will always be a guy selling DVDs on the corner, frequently backed up by organized crime. I'm not so certain that people who are less committed to that lifestyle will be always there and impossible to stop. That ease of participation relies on freedoms are now taken for granted which I feel may well become very eroded in the future.
That misses the point.
If the companies provided what the consumers wanted, in the form they wanted, at a convenient price, the guy on the corner has no customers and goes to a different process. The content creators get paid for the content, the customers can enjoy the content, and everyone is happy. (As typical, customers would always prefer to pay less, producers would like to be paid more, but ultimately a happy balance can be reached if they honestly tried.)
Systems like netflix, hulu, dramafever, amazon video, they are getting closer to what the customers wants. In an even better world all those off-catalog shows, the crappy direct-to-DVD releases, these would also be available in the catalog rather than the constant Disney-esque vault where availability is intentionally reduced to get more coin.
The fact that they are present at all on Torrent systems is enough to let the companies know to add it to the catalogs. If I knew I could watch {popular title} from Redbox for a buck per day, or from some paid service where there are no scratched discs, and watch it on a web player on whatever device I want for a time period, sign me up.
Simply: If it is available in a torrent but not available in the authorized service, the authorized service is insufficient.
The company needs to stop providing insufficient service. When one business gives insufficient service, and another source offers the service, it is clear what will happen to the business. Adapt or die. These companies don't even need to go through the process of digitizing the works; when they discover what is on torrents but not in their catalog, put the ripped torrent version among their authorized versions. What happens when Disney finds a rip from some old VHS they haven't migrated? Instead of trying to shut it down, Disney should find the best ripped copy and put that among their (fully paid and properly authorized) products.
If everything were available through a proper, above board, fully legal paid service, and there was one place I could go to get yesterday's TV show, this week's big blockbuster release, reruns of my favorites from the last decade, reruns from the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, and even all the old back catalog movies clear back to the 1920s when the Golden Age of Cinema started, then the guy at the corner selling bootleg copies would vanish. If the mere presence of a show on torrents was enough to get it added to the proper legal channels, then the need for them would precipitously drop.
It would not vanish completely, there are some people who refuse to pay anything and also refuse to find any friends to share passwords and accounts. If the legal version is immediately available to paying customers, at a convenient price, on a convenient location, viewable on a convenient device, the unsatisfied needs that drive torrented movies would drop off the radar.
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Re:No use fighting it (Score:4, Funny)
Now that netflix is killing the majority of movie piracy in the united states.
I've got a great idea let's genericize the meaning of piracy it's easy just replace I got it for free with "pirated"
Instead of saying I watched The Martian on amazon instant video for free using no rush shipping credits.
Say I watched The Mation on amazon instant video pirated using no rush shipping credits.
Or last week I pirated a drink with my big mac and fries.
Or I watched a movie on netflix uk in the us pirated with a VPN.
Next week we can expand on used merchandise so instead of I bought a used dvd of Reefer Madness for $1
We can say I pirated a dvd of Reefer Madness for $1
In all seriousness there does seem to be a war going on with the used media market especially when it comes to digital copies.
Also a lot of movies aren't available to rent online eg: guardians of the galaxy I'd like to see it but not for $15 I'd be happy with a $5 SD 48hr rental tho.
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I'd be happy with a $5 SD 48hr rental tho.
What the fuck is this, Holiday Video? Is it the 1990s again?
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No its "Amazon Instant Video" The Martian was $4.99 for SD 30 days to start but only 48 hours to finish imho a 2 1/2 hour movie should have at least a 72 hour window. I pirated the $4.99 with no rush shipping credits.
Whats really stupid about this is that a lot of the time the dvd is cheaper than buying a digital copy even when the DVD includes a digital copy. Used dvds are in the $1 to $2 range where I live so even the digital rentals look rather high.
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https://flixsearch.io/movie/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014
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Really? For like $20 a month, you have ad-free Hulu and Netflix. That's like a huge portion of content right there. How much more do you need before you can call "won" on the "can stream whatever I want from home for cheap"
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Amazon's catalog may be weak, but if you live in the U.S. and need (read "can rationalize") Amazon Prime, then a good chunk of the movies are yours for the watching anyhow.
Also: I think Amazon's biggest problem on this front, even considering just the free-with-Prime movies, isn't so much the depth of the catalog as the awful search. Netflix's search interface isn't all that hot either (idiosyncratic, strangely limited results, IMO), but compared to Amazon's it seems to be a model of clarity and accuracy. W
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Well what actually works for amazon is that prime gives you free shipping on a lot of things. If you use amazon to shop, those little benefits can quickly add up over the year. Getting the movies and shows as well is a nice bonus. Though, they don't update very option and it is a limited selection.
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Definitely; I have Prime for the shipping, and the TV / movies are a nice bonus. I thought their Bosch series was excellent.
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> Netflix's search interface isn't all that hot either (idiosyncratic, strangely limited results, IMO),
Yup, it's retarded. Supposedly the "justification" is that they don't want to show results for what they don't have the license too. On the PS3 they also don't list titles that are *only* available on DVD/BluRay -- in that case technically Netflix's has it, you just can't stream it, which is again dumb -- why can't they upsell the DVD/BluRay like they do on the Web Version ??
Gee, how about letting me
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Re:No use fighting it (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrast that to movies and TV shows, of which some are available, but it's still highly segregated, they regularly yank stuff out of the catalog to create artificial scarcity, etc. They still haven't gotten with the idea fully. It may be better than it was five years ago, but that's not saying much.
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Contrast it with music. Is there really a problem with music piracy anymore?
RIAA would have you believe otherwise.
There will always be "piracy" because that is the vehicle used to justify them deliberately inconveniencing the customer, (and offering to remove the inconvenience for even more money).
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Contrast it with music. Is there really a problem with music piracy anymore?
No, because nobody wants it. Old music is outselling new music now, because all the new music is shit. Or at best, it's something we've heard before.
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The only way anyone's ever going to match my Sun Ra collection is via torrent, as many of those albums are no longer in print, and haven't been in 20+ years.
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tl;dr music is almost always bad but we can look back on older stuff with rose colored glasses and pick the best.
The thing is, so much music being made right now is 'retro' ... it's just a ripoff of something someone else already did 20 years ago. Since as you say most music sucks, if people are just going to rehash the past, it makes more sense to simply loot the past itself and listen to that.
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Call me old fashioned but I still pirate all my music.
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It's kinda harsh to go back to 1976. We're primarilly talking about things being made now. Because that's what most people pirate, and where most of the money we're talking about is. And stuff shows up on Netflix like a year after theaters. HBO Go first.
I don't think anyone really cares about incentivizing studios to remaster the Breakfast Club for Bluray. I think people are talking about people pirating unreleased movies, etc.
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I don't have any idea who owns the rights, but Netflix gets lots of content by buying bulk access to studio catalogues, so They Lives may be in Universal's classics catalog, or it could be one of the many that falls into a "too hard" bucket, if John Carpenter has a perpetual % of gross, how do you measure and pay for that? There are lots of "classics" that end up in the to
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Old content has numerous rights issues from the way that residuals are paid in movies/TV (but not music). Therefore, it costs money to clear each old release for streaming. Therefore, some old content just isn't worth the effort.
New content, of course, has residual structures that take into account an "Internet" and "computers" and even "cellphones/tablets"
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I have Amazon Prime and we did some trials of Netflix and Hulu, and I can honestly say that it was disappointing finding nothing I was actively looking for on any of the systems. I remember spending an evening just going through a list of movies I've been wanting to watch for a while, being utterly astounded when none of them showed up on each list. Some movies were classics, some were cult movies, some were "just movies I saw in the 1980s that I'd like to watch again", some were blockbusters that hadn't been in the cinema for a couple of years. And... none were there.
I am so glad to read this. I say this kind of thing all the time. I actually find Amazon Prime's streaming somewhat more useful that Netflix (I have both, but not Hulu). Yet all I hear from co-workers and people on the internet is how their subscription to Netflix only, and that only for streaming, has completely and totally satisfied all their watching needs. The only conclusion I can come up with is that they have very different interests than I do and it may well be that what I like to see is so diff
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Maybe in the US, in some countries there are no such services at all or the services have much less content than the US versions (while also usually costing more).
Some places have slow/unreliable internet, metered internet, or internet which is slow/metered at peak times. Streaming doesn't work well in such areas as you generally want to watch at peak times.
Some people want to download content at home so they can watch it while they're away from home where they might not have reliable internet access.
Stream
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Really? For like $20 a month, you have ad-free Hulu and Netflix. That's like a huge portion of content right there. How much more do you need before you can call "won" on the "can stream whatever I want from home for cheap"
I would gladly pay $20 a month to stream "whatever I want". I would even be ok with $20 per month plus ads. hulu + netflix + amazon prime is nowhere close to full coverage. For one, there is a lot of overlap and secondly, they just don't have that many desirable titles. Even adding redbox in for the new releases and you still have crappy coverage. Full amazon is a little better but many shows are $2 per 30 minute episode. $20 per month (or $1 per hour) would be the place where I would just pay it a
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Some people will always pirate, sure, but 99% of people aren't going to ever bother if they can get what they're looking for conveniently and without paying through the nose for it.
True. They spent so much time fighting the internet rather than embracing it that piracy became the norm, it wasn't a matter of people being unwilling to pay but of studios not providing a channel. It was more convenient and ultimately you got a better product. Now we see streaming services that are even more convenient than piracy in most cases (yes there are people who dont have good enough internet connections or want to save for offline viewing, etc...) so studios should be embracing, rather than fighti
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Some people will always pirate, sure, but 99% of people aren't going to ever bother if they can get what they're looking for conveniently and without paying through the nose for it.
True. They spent so much time fighting the internet rather than embracing it that piracy became the norm, it wasn't a matter of people being unwilling to pay but of studios not providing a channel. It was more convenient and ultimately you got a better product. Now we see streaming services that are even more convenient than piracy in most cases (yes there are people who dont have good enough internet connections or want to save for offline viewing, etc...) so studios should be embracing, rather than fighting this sort of technology.
It doesn't actually matter what the studios do. The biggest reason for selling fewer shows in the future is not going to be piracy, it's going to because they make crap shows. Same as with music - someone upthread pointed out that old music outsells new music. I dunno if it's true but it certainly sounds plausible - the new stuff is all crap.
Hell, a friend dropped by with a terabyte drive filled with recent shows. I've seen perhaps the first two episodes of each show but the only one I was willing to sit th
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It doesn't actually matter what the studios do. The biggest reason for selling fewer shows in the future is not going to be piracy, it's going to because they make crap shows.
Well we're talking about piracy, you're hardly going to pirate shows you don't even want to watch. I'm not sure there has been any significant decrease in the watching of television shows recently due to a supposed quality decline.
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> Old music outsells new music because there's more of it.
The new shiny shiny should be able to outsell the back catalog regardless. The new shiny shiny is getting all of the marketing support. The fact that the back catalog is selling better than the new stuff is still pathetic, even if it's only in the aggregate.
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"You can't stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere."
They're never going to stop piracy. It's like trying to play whack-a-mole. Movie companies would do a much better job if they stopped trying to squash any sort of piracy, and focused more on providing what people want, in the form they want, when they want it, at a convenient price. Some people will always pirate, sure, but 99% of people aren't going to ever bother if they can get what they're looking for conveniently and without paying through the nose for it.
I think you confuse what Hollywood wants. It's never going to become like Bollywood, where hits are fast and furious, and sell for rupees on the dollar.
Hollywood maintains it's margins on control. Like Orwell said "All art is propaganda". Wagging the Dog.
Unless there's a titanic shift in the market, Hollywood will continue to tell us what we want, rather than cater mainly to what is desired by moviegoers.
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They care more about control than they do about money.
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If the free version is just as good and just as easily available, approximately nobody would pay for a similar sevice. Hulu and Netflix are great, sure. But if bittorrents (and the like) had never been prosecuted, and you could just get the popcorn time app for your ipad and watch whatever you want, what sort of idiot would pay?
Even now, with threats of prosecution, and sketchy websites with advertisements for Russian brides, and a good chance of viruses, and the need for technical know-how, bittorrents a
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I do think many, if not most people are okay paying for movies, especially ones they know are good ones from friends, families, or trusted reviewers. That is, as long as the price is reasonable and it works as expected.
What makes piracy still attractive is the ability to get movies without certain restrictions and earlier than you'd get it from whatever method they subscribe to.
Price matters more to those who have little disposable income, but that is not as many people as you might think. Mostly it's youn
No, they shouldn't thow in the towel (Score:1, Interesting)
They're never going to stop piracy... Movie companies would do a much better job if they stopped trying to squash any sort of piracy
How is your argument any different from the following?
- Retailers are never going to stop shoplifting. The should stop trying.
- The police are never going to stop murder. They should stop trying to enforce that law.
- The SEC is never going to stop securities fraud. They should stop trying to enforce those laws.
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Piracy doesn't harm anyone. Study after study has shown that piracy doesn't hurt movie profits. So that's why his argument is different - because it's entirely different.
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The difference is most people dont go around shoplifting, murdering and defrauding. Pretty much everyone who uses the internet violates copyright every day.
Google "http", 15.2 Billion hits;
Google "all rights reserved", 4.8 Billion hits.
So almost one third of web content is illegal to browse.
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> 1: Satellite is hack-proof, and hasn't been compromised.
> 2: The latest HDCP handshake has been the bane of pirates everywhere.
> 3: Blu-Ray (BD+ actually) has yet to be cracked.
I think these three are just wrong.
I decrypt BDs all the time myself. The other two also have well known cracks that are often discussed in forums more specialized than this one.
Or were you attempting sarcasm...
You sure they "released the code"? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the "Torrents Time" github location all I see is an "embed" project that's essentially a JS snippet.
https://github.com/torrentsTim... [github.com]
https://github.com/torrentsTim... [github.com]
Where's the source code for:
https://cdn.torrents-time.com/... [torrents-time.com]
https://cdn.torrents-time.com/... [torrents-time.com]
?
Re: You sure they "released the code"? (Score:1)
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It looks to me like it's just a local torrent client with a browser plugin that allows it to be loaded and controlled from a webpage.
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>> It looks to me like it's just a local torrent client with a browser plugin
I *KNOW* - but where's the source code for the plug-in?
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https://webtorrent.io/ does torrents over WebRTC. It's not compatible with ordinary BitTorrent clients, though.
Want big Hollywood movies? Eliminate Hollywood (Score:3, Insightful)
> Torrents Time is trying to make sure Hollywood can't wake up.
This is the attitude I don't understand.
If you don't like big-budget Hollywood movies and prefer independent films, that's cool. You can watch plenty of independent films online and offline. I take a similar tack with software - I don't care for how Microsoft treats their customers, so I don't use their software. I've been using open source for decades.
What makes no sense is "I love $200 million cinema spectaculars so much, I'll steal them to make it more difficult to fund the next one."
Yeah, studios who spend a billion dollars making sure three movies try pretty hard to recoup the cost, mostly from the one that turns out to be popular, and that includes all the typical "big business" stuff that goes on when hundreds of millions of dollars are involved. It seems to me that if you like Star Wars and you want to see the next sequel (and have the studio spend $x00 million to make it), the LAST thing you'd want to do is damage the studio that makes them. You'd BUY the DVD , or at least toss in $2 to stream it, if you wanted more movies like that, I'd think.
Personally, I don't care for the big-budget films like Star Wars, so I don't stream, rent, or buy them (and I certainly don't steal them). I rent the low-budget comedies I like for $2 at Redbox, which encourages theatres to make another movie like it, which I'll also rent. I'm not trying to destroy the people who produce the stuff I like.
s/theatres/studios/ (Score:3)
The word "theatres" in the post above should of course be "studios".
Anyway, when I (and a bunch of other people) toss them $2 to rent or stream Mall Cop, they make money from it and they make Mall Cop 2, which I then enjoy. If I like the movies that a studio makes, wtf would I want to get rid of them?
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I don't participate in online communities for tv shows like those that discuss and analyse them but I can see how it would be annoying to want to be a part of that but to have to isolate yourse
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>What makes no sense is "I love $200 million cinema spectaculars so much, I'll steal them to make it more difficult to fund the next one."
You're right. It makes no sense. I mean, as far as I know, no movie has ever been stolen, ever.
Now, I'll assume you meant to say pirated, so we can move on from that mistake.
>Yeah, studios who spend a billion dollars making sure three movies try pretty hard to recoup the cost, mostly from the one that turns out to be popular, and that includes all the typical "big
Want it convenient for $1 no ads = crap excuse (Score:1)
We'll go ahead and ignore the huge gaps in logic in the first part your post, because you're right we'll never come to understand one another on that. Instead, let's focus on the last bit.
You're right that a preview / ad is basically part of the cost for a free or low cost stream. It's basically the same as charging another 50 cents or whatever. So we can consolidate the two options "cheap" and "even cheaper, with an ad". $1 with an ad and $2 without are basically the same thing.
Basically, you're saying
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Oooh I like it!
Ps: 2008 is over. 50% of Redbox sales go to studio (Score:5, Interesting)
Ps your studio propaganda about Redbox is WAY outdated, and it wasn't even true back in 2008-2009 when the studios were saying that.
In fact, Redbox reports that 50% of their rental revenue goes to the studios. Most often through a revenue- sharing deal like the one they have with Warner Brothers:
http://deadline.com/2015/03/wa... [deadline.com]
Back in 2008, and today for Disney, Redbox stocks (buys) enough DVDs and Bluray discs to meet demand. If a lot of people rent Disney movies from Redbox, then Redbox buys a bunch of Disney disks to keep their machines stocked. If fewer people rent a particular movie, Redbox might put one copy in half of their machines. (Ever had to drive to a different Redbox location to find the movie you wanted? This is why. Only the most popular releases are in every machine.) If few people want to rent a movie, Redbox doesn't stock it at all, so they buy zero copies.
In short, the more people want to rent a movie, the more copies Redbox needs, so they buy more - which means more money for the studios.
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I'd love to be able to stream any of the Star Wars movies for $2 - hell, I'd pay $8 or $9 - but none of them are available to stream - you have to buy them at $19.99 each - which I am no way going to do.
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> Torrents Time is trying to make sure Hollywood can't wake up.
This is the attitude I don't understand.
What about their impact on the law?
Even if you're not into Disney movies, you're still impacted by the legislative bullshit we're currently diving in ("Mickey Mouse" copyright act, aka DMCA) indirectly caused by Disney copyright holders.
It wouldn't bother me if this bullshit only applied to Disney movies, however, its scope is much broader.
Experience has shown us that the content industry is continuously trying to make illegal anything they think reduces profit.
More precisely, first they make it techn
DVD circumvention software officially okay by DMCA (Score:2)
On a tangent to your point, open-source players are now allowed under DMCA. In the US, you still need a patent license ($2.50).
DMCA instructs the Library of Congress to make rules about the details of fair-use circumvention. Here's the latest set of rule changes :
http://copyright.gov/fedreg/20... [copyright.gov]
Under current rules, there are substantial uses allowed as fair use, mostly in an educational context. Because a DVD player/ripper is "capable of substantial non-infringing use", it's legal.
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You do not understand people being cheap ? Because even if many great thinkers of slashdot will not recognize it and will try to rationalize piracy in a way or the other, this is still the main driving factor for most of the people using this kind of solutions.
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A cracked copy is always going to more be useful. A player that does things it's not allowed to, is always going to be more useful than one that does not. The so-called copy-protection schemes don't do any thing of the sort and never did. All they do is reduce the usefulness of "legitimate paid for copies".
Even if you actually did pay for it, it's still more useful to strip the DRM yourself or have someone else do it for you.
That's even assuming that the work in question is being made available.
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I'm sure if they are struggling to make a profit from a film because of a few illegitimate copies they could recoup the costs by paying actors a normal wage, getting rid of all the IP lawyers who only serve to line their own pockets, and generally cut some of the incredible cruft that is associated with Hollywood.
Interesting ideas, I have knowledge of one part (Score:2)
Those are some interesting thoughts. I have some specific knowledge about one thing you mentioned, and some thoughts on the others.
> they could recoup the costs by paying actors a normal wage
There are many, many films with actors paid "a normal wage" (thousands of dollars). They are called "independent films". How many have you watched? How many have you bought? Yeah, me neither. Once in a while, those make tens of thousands in revenue, because approximately nobody buys them. On average, they lose m
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There are many, many films with actors paid "a normal wage" (thousands of dollars). They are called "independent films". How many have you watched? How many have you bought? Yeah, me neither. Once in a while, those make tens of thousands in revenue, because approximately nobody buys them. On average, they lose money. On the other hand, people bought $787 million in tickets for Star Wars IV.
I watch plenty, and that's where my interesting through comes from: Most of these people are every bit the actors as the big budget blockbusters, heck in many cases they are far better. For some reason a bit of marketing results in a few people being put on pedestals and get suddenly made filthy rich.
It's not "a few copies", it's millions of people skipping out on paying the $2 to stream it.
Yep so a few million people skip on $2 all Keanu Reeves needed to do was take a 1% pay cut for the Matrix and that cost would be recouped.
Obviously they've messed some things up with how they try to handle piracy and all.
Actually with the lawyer comment I wasn't even talking about piracy, I w
1% of $10M is $100K, not $60 million (Score:2)
> few million people skip on $2 all Keanu Reeves needed to do was take a 1% pay cut for the Matrix and that cost would be recouped.
Your math is off by a few orders of magnitude. Not to worry, that's normal with big numbers. Psychologically, "million", "billion", and "trillion" are all just big numbers, we KNOW the difference, but it's completely unintuitive to think about big large numbers.
"A few million people" at $2 each is $60 MILLION.
1% of Reeves salary for The Matrix is $100 THOUSAND.
In fact, $6
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Keeping in mind that Hollywood has elevated illegal accounting to the highest form of Art and Science. There have been name-brand, legit blockbuster movies that the studios claim they barely broke-even on.
I'm not advocating pirating movie
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Instead of accusing him of a "false dichotomy," explain the third option, and all of us will be enlightened. You're currently low on the pyramid [wikipedia.org].
The bullshit Capitalist "threat". (Score:5, Insightful)
"...If Popcorn Time is Hollywood's worst nightmare, Torrents Time is trying to make sure Hollywood can't wake up."
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Everyone listen up. There are more than enough consumers on this planet to accommodate the greedy executives who run the capitalist corporations, as well as accommodating those who don't feel like paying them a damn dime.
Let's put it this way. How many sales records did the latest Star Wars movie crush in a matter of weeks? I rest my case. Now kindly STFU already about capitalism being killed by piracy. It's not happening nor is it ever going to, and the last fucking thing the lawyers need are the geeks themselves confirming this lie in order to justify more Orwellian anti-piracy laws.
Cavalier attitudes about theft (Score:3)
Strawman much? I've never heard anyone claim that Hollywood will be killed by piracy, just as I've never heard anyone claim that Macy's will be killed by shoplifting.
It won't kill Macy's, but shoplifting has killed lesser retailers who almost attained profitability, and it is a crime.
How well would the following argument hold up? "There are more than enough shoppers on this planet to accommodate the greedy stockholders who own Macy's, as well as accommodating those who don't feel like paying them a damn d
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...I suspect you're not as cavalier about theft when it's your property -- intellectual or otherwise -- that's stolen.
When my car is stolen, I'm not going to stand in front of Congress petitioning for every new car to be outfitted with Federally-mandated GPS trackers and demand 15-year minimum mandatory sentencing for all car thieves.
I suspect you missed that main point and key difference here. Yes, theft is a crime. Yes, it should be punished. No way in hell do the punishments fit the crime in most cases. To revert to the car analogy again, if the MPAA/RIAA were in charge of traffic violations, a speeding ticket would
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"...If Popcorn Time is Hollywood's worst nightmare, Torrents Time is trying to make sure Hollywood can't wake up."
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Everyone listen up. There are more than enough consumers on this planet to accommodate the greedy executives who run the capitalist corporations, as well as accommodating those who don't feel like paying them a damn dime.
Let's put it this way. How many sales records did the latest Star Wars movie crush in a matter of weeks? I rest my case. Now kindly STFU already about capitalism being killed by piracy. It's not happening nor is it ever going to, and the last fucking thing the lawyers need are the geeks themselves confirming this lie in order to justify more Orwellian anti-piracy laws.
So you have no problem stealing things so long as there are enough other people subsidizing it that the creators don't actively lose money? Congratulations, you're a mooch and a jackass.
It's really simple. If someone makes something and gives it away, fine, don't pay. If someone makes something and gives it away but asks for donations if you liked it, fine, don't pay if you don't want to. But if someone makes something that you want to see/use/whatever, and decides to charge money for it, then that's the fee to see/use/whatever. Oh, the price is more than you want to pay? Too bad, go without (note that we're talking about entertainment products and software, not stuff like food and shelter) or find an alternative. Why are you so special that everyone else has to pay, but not you? Oh, you're sticking it to the man by being a freeloader? Please. Get back with me once you've grown up a little bit.
Or, if you legitimately are too poor to spend a few bucks on a movie now and again, you probably have much bigger problems, and I wonder how you afford Internet access and a computer/smartphone to post on Slashdot.
OK, to reduce your propensity to ASS-U-ME here, I pay for my media, and can easily afford a movie every now and then. Hell, I still buy CDs and prefer physical media due to all the damn tracking and monitoring that goes with every online service. And yes, this means I can easily afford a computer and internet access, in case you were somehow worried I was broadcasting homeless under a bridge down by the river.
The issue I have here is the punishment not fitting the crime, which is the case most of the time
Why? (Score:4, Informative)
I stopped bothering with torrents years ago. Even the Canadian version of Netflix has more than enough titles to fill my TV-watching time. Sure it's not blockbusters all the time, and we get new titles months if not years after the DVD releases, but it's also really not expensive and I feel like I'm getting excellent value for the low monthly fee.
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Why?
Well, let me answer th-
it's not blockbusters
months if not years after the DVD releases
Nevermind.
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Oh, ok. You feel entitled to watch everything for free, right fucking now. My mistake.
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Dunno about the previous poster, but for me it's not about being entitled. It's the fact that when it comes to movies/TV shows, the paid is almost always worse than what you can get off of torrents. I can get a DRM-free 1080p MKV file with integrated subtitles and commentary track for various movies that I can move around to whatever devices I own, without relying on a fast Internet connection to be able to watch them. No-one sells movies in the form that I want. Once you've had years of such a standard of
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I buy movies and shows, but I rip them, each and every one. Why? The advertising on media you've purchased is not disgraceful, its disgusting.
Let me be clear: I *enjoy* watching trailers for movies that I might remotely have an interest in. What I don't want is to have to sit through fifteen minutes of them before I can watch the movie that I wanted to watch. I tolerate it in the theater, but when I sit down to enjoy Iron Monkey I want to watch it -- not wait for anti-piracy blurbs and trailers I've already
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Netflix helps when you just want to flop down and watch something random, but when you want to watch episode X of series Y (not carried by Netflix) NOW, that's where I use torrents, etc.
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Hulu = U.S.A.-only
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In my country, we have roughly 35% of the content the US have on Netflix.
Oh, that's just based on titles, I'm not including TV Show seasons.
We're, on average, 2 years behind on almost all TV Shows.
But we still pay full price.
That's why.
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People still watch movies? (Score:1)
Movies? (Score:2)
Who torrents movies anymore? Or music for that matter. Netflix, Spotify and other streaming services have pretty much solved that one. I suspect that most of the people torrenting movies are either young kids that do it for the lulz, or people who can't afford $20/month to rent DVDs from Netflix, in which case they wouldn't be a customer anyway. If the studios were smart, they'd launch a PR campaign saying how they're not going to prosecute anyone anymore for sharing, generating goodwill and (re)capture
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If the studios were smart, they would offer worldwide streaming or timed rental of their entire catalogue at a reasonable price - and cut out all the middlemen like Netflix, Hulu, etc.
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Same reply I made here: http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... [slashdot.org]
Summery: We get 35% of the content the US does on Netflix, and TV Shows are, on average, 2 years behind.
"Region Locks" are the reason.
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I was just talking movies and music, but you've got a point for sure about TV. To watch current TV, torrenting is still way more convenient than anything else, at any price. CBS All Access and that kind of thing is becoming more prevalent, but is less than ideal, to put it mildly.
Can it get me Doctor Who? (Score:2)
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There is a Mac uninstaller at the bottom.
How do you uninstall a Mac? Throw it away?
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Same way you upgrade one.