Controversial Torrent Streaming App 'Popcorn Time' Shuts Down, Then Gets Reborn 199
An anonymous reader writes "A piece of software called 'Popcorn Time' drew a lot of attention last week for encapsulating movie torrents within a slick, stream-based UI that made watching pirated films as easy as firing up Netflix. The app ran into trouble a few days ago when it was pulled from its hosting provider, Mega, and now Popcorn Time's creators say they're shutting it down altogether. They say it was mainly an experiment: 'Piracy is not a people problem. It's a service problem. A problem created by an industry that portrays innovation as a threat to their antique recipe to collect value. It seems to everyone that they just don't care. But people do. We've shown that people will risk fines, lawsuits and whatever consequences that may come just to be able to watch a recent movie in slippers. Just to get the kind of experience they deserve.' However, the software itself isn't a complete loss — the project is being picked up by the founder of a torrent site, and he says development will continue."
This is indeed a service problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is indeed a service problem, which I've been saying for years. I'm happy to fork over $$ to any service that lets me watch the latest episodes of my favourite TV show or a movie that has recently been released.
No stupid region codes, no stupid staggered releases to other parts of the world (yes, I am in YURP), just a reasonable price for access to the latest contest. Netflix goes a long way, but generally has older content (which, I guess, is easier to license).
I feel that I have no other option but piracy, and if a legitimate alternative would be available, I'd use it.
Re:This is indeed a service problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Different AC Here but in fact, I buy a lot of mp3, non-DRMed, non-region encoded, music. A few albums a month from the Amazon MP3 store.
If I could buy non-DRMed, non-region encoded movies, I'd buy about as many. As it stands, I buy zero.
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iTunes doesn't carry certain songs into Europe, so even if they are under one Euro a pop, we just can't get it through there.
I am not sure about Netflix but when I checked it back in the day it was as region locked as Hulu, is that still the case?
Likewise certain mobile apps are also region-locked, even when they are free.
The whole region lock is a very complex issue, not to mention certain governments tax multimedia content on customs even if it's just a $2 comic book, to discourage importing physical cont
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I think you're mixing up two things - although the end-result to the user is largely the same.
Region locking would mean that if you tried to 'import a song/movie' from the U.S., you can't play it back on your European music player. See e.g. the region locks on DVDs and computer games.
What you're referring to though is market segmentation/differentiation. E.g. releasing of a title in one market, but not in the other, or under different terms - be that release date difference or price difference, etc.)
While
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Oh, I just don't get it if I am prevented from purchasing it at all. It's not like I need a certain game or song to go. In that case I boycott the product, and yes, that includes not playing it.
There's no bigger form of protesting against an artistic creation than paying it no attention whatsoever.
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I mean, if you disregard pre-teen freeloaders with no money and little morals
Copying bits has little to do with morality.
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Then neither is sitting in a mostly empty movie theater without paying for a ticket, or taking a bus or train ride, when they are mostly empty, without paying for the ticket. In both cases, the owners of those establishments are not losing any money by your freeloading because hardly anyone is using them at that moment.
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Then neither is sitting in a mostly empty movie theater without paying for a ticket, or taking a bus or train ride, when they are mostly empty, without paying for the ticket.
Yeah, but you risk being kicked off by the property owners. But there is no tangible harm there, you're right.
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There's an iTunes store in most European markets, but it's more of an afterthought where the original videos are usually inacessible and you only get localized/dubbed crap even though the original version is right there next to it on the server.
Sounds like a great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Most torrents are probably added to watch right away, so if more emphasis on getting the first part first, and watching while it is downloaded, how is this not simply a good thing.
I know i'm going to get zapped by this but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I found out about Popcorn time from Huffington post last week and used it 3 times. It was amazing. If you did not get the chance to see it then, too bad. Netflix sucks by comparison for something that lasted 4 day's.
Now as for legality, I feel something might have been illegal about it (hehe) but i wish it were not. I am totally unashamed about what i did. It truly was something to see.
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I think so but at the same time it reminds me of "old school" cable where people were buying the Mike Tyson fight and charging for it, i personally saw the Tyson and Holyfield fight (Tyson bit off his ear) and had to pay $20.00 for it and it lasted what? Fifteen seconds? Thank god the $20.00 paid for beer afterward.
That seems to be the problem in my mind, the Companies concerned are not getting a cut of that revenue.
Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
The belief you "deserve" a government-enforced monopoly over ideas or methods.
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Re:Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
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But you are not making $1.2million per release, so you cant afford yet another gold plated Ferarri...
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Considering that your version of "scientific evidence" involves creating an alternative universe with no copyright and seeing how things work out, your claim is utterly irrelevant because all you've done is limit "scientific evidence" to something that can't practically be done. You've moved the goalposts so far away that nobody can actually meet the level of proof you demand. You're like a cr
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Considering that your version of "scientific evidence" involves creating an alternative universe with no copyright and seeing how things work out
Been there, done that. The least you could do is say something that wasn't already said in one of those comments; something I didn't already respond to. The next best thing would be to get rid of copyright, since, again, there is no scientific evidence for it, and by default, restrictions should not exist, so the burden of proof is on those defending restrictions.
We support freedom of speech because the consequences are generally bad if we don't.
I support freedom of speech because I believe freedom of speech is a good thing in and of itself and should not be limited. I simply like the idea
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Slight correction for you. Downloading is not defined as a copyright violation. Copyright does not protect who gets access to a protected work, just who can copy and distribute it. Downloading does neither unless you stretch the meaning of the word copying to include the machine you are downloading from making and transmitting a copy to you.
And the lost sale/money argument is incorrect. If you own a canoe rental business and I come in the middle of the night when you are closed and use your canoes without p
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The net effect is exactly the same, no noticeable loss to you or anyone outside of a legal privilege to collect fees. The analogy fits quite well as your private property only remains yours because of a legal construct. Otherwise I could simply claim it as mine and there would be nothing you could do other than take it from me if you can.
You simply cannot show one so the analogy is adequate to illustrate a concept. BTW, waiving your hands in the air screaming the analogy is bad doesn't address any real impl
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Give up on what? Copyright is only a legal construct too. Like it or not, it's valid and the premise is valid.
I don't need an analogy for copying bits. I gave a good and accurate
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The problem is that if everyone pays the per-unit cost, movies can't be made, only distributed. For the system to work everyone has to pay the per-unit cost, a share of the overhead, and a bit of profit.
That said, I disagree that pirates only want to pay the per-unit cost, many would be willing to pay the regular price to get things in the format they want at the time they want. Since this is frequently not available, they resort to piracy.
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Everything you "own" is protected by a government enforced monopoly over that item - why are the laws which protect your stuff better than the laws which protect other peoples stuff?
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Recent abuse of government does not mean the whole concept of government is bad. In the same vein, recent abuse by copyright holders does not mean the concept of copyright is bad. It served us well for most of 200 years. It still can.
The trick is to rein in the abuse, not to destroy something that demonstrably works well when it is allowed to.
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Recent abuse of government does not mean the whole concept of government is bad.
That's not at all the point I've been making, not even about copyright. My point, as I've made clear, is that copyright itself is intolerable because it infringes upon free speech and real private property rights, regardless of any 'good' people think it does. The less important point I make is that there's no actual scientific evidence that it even is beneficial to begin with.
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"That's not at all the point I've been making, not even about copyright."
Uh... that sure as hell is what it looked like you were saying with the comment I replied to.
You weren't "making points" at all. You were simply making bald claims of philosophy.
Now, I happen to be somewhat on your side when it comes to GP's statement about "deserving" somebody elses' work. But that doesn't mean I agree with you about copyright in general not being useful or good.
We DO have evidence of what happens when you do not have a reasonable body of copyright law: Soviet Russia and Red China
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"So your evidence is to point to past societies that were and are vastly different from our own in a myriad of other ways. Different economic systems, different forms of government, etc. Really?"
No, I'm pointing to current societies that still exist today only because they have adopted more reasonable economic principles, which allow individuals to profit from their own labor. The contrast is clear, and the reasons for it are also.
"Who says there would be an absence of personal gain?"
There WAS absence of personal gain, in the examples I pointed to. Are you really so thoroughly missing the point here?
"Much like copyright itself."
You keep saying so, but you have offered exactly zero evidence. Merely statements of ideology.
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"... but I do not see how you would come to that conclusion."
Obviously. I already mentioned this.
"I'm not the one in need of evidence."
Since you're the one making the extraordinary claim, which seems to violate both common sense and the evidence that IS available, I'd say you are.
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"I make no extraordinary claims. The evidence people have brought forth simply do not disprove the null hypothesis."
This isn't a controlled experiment, so they don't have to. How ridiculous.
If you want to conduct such a study -- preferably blind or even better double-blind -- I'll wait.
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This isn't a controlled experiment
No, but it is a matter of laws, so their evidence had better be damn good, otherwise they're restricting people based on bullshit speculation, which is simply unacceptable.
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I don't argue for private property rights merely because they bring about good results, but because they enable people to have more freedom in certain areas and more privacy.
Repeating what I said and altering it a bit does nothing to change the fact that you have a complete lack of evidence.
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So you have the freedom to make arguments with a lack of evidence while others do not?
No, what really gets me is when they claim that copyright is beneficial. That's usually when I start asking for proof (or when I explain my position). If they merely said something subjective like "I feel that it's just." or "Authors should have such a freedom." then the discussion would be different. If something like that is why you support copyright, then I disagree with you, but I won't ask you for evidence, because it would be irrelevant. But when people say that it is beneficial, I'm going to ask for
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While you're at it, make the same sort of post about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, privacy, etc. just for good measure. It won't do any good, but it's just for completeness.
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In the US context, "[...] government-e
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you would know that they are separate issues
Obviously, I acknowledged that they are separate issues. Not sure what the point of your comment was.
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But I *do* find it funny that you talk about "emotion-laden buzzwords" when you're the one who made a comment titled "Entitled Asshole Mentality" and then went on to mock people who supposedly think they're entitled to other people's work (whatever that means).
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For those who don't know, this idea you have a right--because you are willing to pay--to another's authorship, movie, services, goods, etc., is that very idea of entitlement which is so repugnant: it means having a right to the extension of the lives and labors of those, with no natural relations to yourself, whom owe you nothing but to respect that you too exist, and should be permitted to unfettered.
Now that you've explained what you meant, I can say that I have seen no such people, and I think hardly any exist. I see people criticizing current business models, but that isn't the same as saying you're entitled to something. I also see people infringing upon copyrights, but again, merely downloading something because it's there is not the same as saying you're entitled to something.
Re:Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Paid for what?
The entire notion that you should be able to have a government-enforced monopoly over ideas or methods that infringe upon free speech and private property rights is something I believe qualifies as an "entitled asshole mentality."
Entitled Asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
Or as Simpsons' Lenny would put it: "All we want is brand new, big-budget entertainment in our homes for nothing. Why doesn't Hollywood get that?"
A service problem indeed.
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Or as Simpsons' Lenny would put it: "All we want is brand new, big-budget entertainment in our homes for nothing. Why doesn't Hollywood get that?
Again, most of you are missing the point. It's not all about begin free, I think most people are not adverse to paying reasonable charges for entertainment. However, the modern crop of Hollywood movies are just not worth the ticket price. Most of them are simply "remakes" of movies I watched as a kid in the 70's. I don't need to watch those again at $12 a pop, $18 if it's in "3D". For a family of four with teens one movie with popcorn and drinks can blow the whole entertainment budget for a month,
With big s
Re: Entitled Asshole (Score:2)
Okay. If you want reasonable just wait for three to four months for the movie to come out on video on demand and pay $5.
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Personally, I do wait the months until a movie becomes a cheap rental at the local DVD store. Doesn't change the fact that copyright (and patent) law is a protection racket.
"Hi, we're the government, Bob has a patent on that widget, so you have to pay him whatever he demands or stop selling them. Oh, you came up with the design independently? Doesn't matter, he filed a patent and paid us our fee. Now step away from your widget-maker or it'll go badly for you."
Protection racket.
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Ah, but I don't think I have the right to such a movie. I just recognise the fact that the particular legislative framework erected to protect their profitability is flawed at a fundamental level, and it continues to empower the dysfunctional sociopolitical environment that originally built that framework, feeding on itself - which is why copyright terms have increased from seven years to more than seventy years. Hellooooo, Mickey.
TLDR? Bad laws empower bad people; that some good was done along the way is n
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Just because you invested an extraordinary amount of money in something doesn't mean you deserve extraordinary government intervention to guarantee you a return. If new technology undermines your business model, find another business model.
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As long as we don't have to pay for the same product again and again and again... Today we pay when a movie hits the cinemas, then again when it hits pay-per-view movie channels, then again via advertising when it hits the general networks and then again when the DVD or blu-ray is out so we finally can take it home to view when we please... That's just insane.
It should be possible even at the very first premiere of a movie to decide not to go to the cinema and just take the movie home right away on blu-ray.
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The belief you "deserve" a government-enforced monopoly over ideas or methods.
It's not a belief, they paid for it.
Paid for what?
They paid good fucking money for the laws that give them a perpetual monopoly over ideas and methods, and they expect fucking results.
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To lose money, they'd have to have the money to begin with. Since the money in question belongs to other people, companies can't lose it, because it was never theirs to lose.
Re:Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm happy to pay for...
1. timely ...movie file / TV show episode file download.
2. 1080p and/or 1080p 3D
3. portable, clean (but reasonable DRM accepted)
Nobody wants my money.
Steam is something I currently consider reasonable. I can log in anywhere and (re)download my purchases and use them freely. Sadly it's just for PC/Mac games.
Netflix is closest to usable, but they fail #1 and #3. I also grossly dislike the fact that something being on Netflix today does not guarantee it is there tomorrow. Shows and movies get yanked out all the time with no rhyme or reason. Heck, just a couple of weeks ago I decided that I'd like to re-watch Stargate. Old but popular Sci-Fi TV series that is already pretty much out of rerun circulation on the TV. Surely Netflix has it.
Nope.
Certain "Bay" that shall not be named had it in perfect set of high quality files that I can watch at any time and that nobody can take away from me tomorrow based on their whim. I would have paid for that, but nobody wanted my money. I actually tried - every single place told me my money was no good because I did not live in the US. I did not want a mountain of DVD discs on my shelf (tho I did consider buying a bunch of boxed sets but the total shipping costs and the sheer physical amount of discs and the hassle of juggling them put me off).
Wake me when the studios match at least Blu-Ray release dates with worldwide, downloadable (not streamable) high quality offerings at a price point that is less than the Blu-ray box (as Blu-rays have resale value while downloads generally do not).
Not holding my breath. Nope.
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reasonable DRM
Isn't something that actually exists.
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DRM necessarily means that you're not in full control of your computing, or that someone is attempting to take control away from you, and that alone means it's automatically bad. Steam is not "reasonable DRM," as reasonable DRM does not exist. And as far as I'm aware, games on Steam don't *need* to use DRM.
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It would be nice if the existing big studios were intelligent and competitive enough to eventually catch up with technology, but if even the piracy they rave and lobby the government over won't push them forward, they may never join the rest of us.
The future lies in content producers who already sell their work mainly online [www.vhx.tv]. It woudn't surprise me to see vhfx.tv releasing an app like Netflix, or adding their library to any number of other convenient online media stores. They get it. Digital distribution is
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Is the iTunes Store not to your satisfaction? It's always worked fine for me. I never notice the DRM.
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Won't SOMEBODY think of those more fortunate than us?
Re:Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that people need to be able to earn a living, but we tend to create scarcity in order to create profit. Think of the cost of reproducing a film these days, or an mp3, do you think each copy is worth the fee charged for it?
It's not only the reproduction costs but it also includes the value of the hard work of the artist.
At first glance it would seem that "no one loses anything" when you make a copy of some song. But it's kind of like making fake money -- no one loses money if you print money, but in the end the value of the money decreases due to inflation. It's the same for music: if enough people just take a free copy, the value of the music decreases. Then the artist and/or record company do not see feasible to produce that artist's music anymore.
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But it's kind of like making fake money -- no one loses money if you print money, but in the end the value of the money decreases due to inflation. It's the same for music: if enough people just take a free copy, the value of the music decreases. Then the artist and/or record company do not see feasible to produce that artist's music anymore.
Yes, kind of. Only not really at all.
I can print as much fake money as possible and burn it or wallow around on the floor in it and I haven't really devalued the nation's currency at all. Now, if I turn around and try to sell that money to someone as my money, the your analogy holds. However, I can make a copy of a song and listen to it in an infinite loop all day and as long as I never intended to purchase the song in the first place, I haven't devalued the song in any way. (Until such time as I turn
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However, I can make a copy of a song and listen to it in an infinite loop all day and as long as I never intended to purchase the song in the first place, I haven't devalued the song in any way.
You consumed the song's value when you listened to it. But before that you didn't pay for it. So you devalued the song.
You got value for listening the music, the artist got no value for making it.
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Financially speaking, the author would derive better value from flipping burgers if all he got from his book was a momentary emotion of "having created something awesome."
Really? In that case, software devs should work for free as there is a lot of creativity (bu
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However, I can make a copy of a song and listen to it in an infinite loop all day and as long as I never intended to purchase the song in the first place, I haven't devalued the song in any way.
It doesn't matter whether you did intend to purchase it or not; money you never had isn't something you can lose.
Re: Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:2)
If I could register with an organization and submit donations for movies that I pirated and watched, I would absolutely pay. I still pay my cable bill even though I pirate all of my TV and haven't turned my cable boxes on for over 2 years.
I thought this up quite a while ago, and even brought it up on slashdot once before. I was modded down because the people who did see it screamed "think of the transportation industry!"
Anyway, my vision is quite clear. The media companies put together a website in which we could simply buy a license to obtain a copy of a specific work by any digital means available in whatever formats available.
The idea is since they are selling the license only, it completely cuts out the cost of producing physical media a
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if *I* make a copy, nothing is lost as i was not going to purchase the product the first place. You may think it diminishes the product's value, but it doesn't.
The artist ( or developer, etc ) also might make a sale later due to my recommendation as without the copy, i would have never heard it in the first place and could not recommend it. If i determine the product had value to me, id even pay for it afterward.
You may see it as a way to get out of paying for something, while i dont. If it wasn't for the
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if *I* make a copy, nothing is lost as i was not going to purchase the product the first place. You may think it diminishes the product's value, but it doesn't.
It does diminish it. You already acquired a free copy instead of getting the product through the official distribution chains intended by the creators. It does not matter if you "didn't plan to purchase the product in the first place" or if you don't even listen to the music at all and it's just sitting on your hard drive. When taking the free copy, you acquired the value of the product, but didn't give anything back for it.
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Restrictions on computing or copying are unacceptable. Full stop. This is not negotiable. Copying is as natural as breathing in the digital age. Everything else, without exception, has to start from this premise and work around it. Nothing else is compatible with technological progress. Nothing else is compatible with free society.
If artists cannot sustainably produce music under this constraint, then so be it. Better to have no music at all than no freedom of computing.
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Re:Entitled Asshole Mentality (Score:5, Interesting)
To take just one example, if not for copyright restrictions, Google Books would provably be willing to make available for free to every human on the planet the entire contents of the Library of Congress. You're telling me that the future potential growth from making this knowledge available isn't worth trading 1% of our economy on a one-time basis?
The numbers game. (Score:2)
Commercial software represents about 1% of our economy
and your source for this number is to be found where?
Commercial software is usually tightly integrated into the workflow of a business. The clerical working using MS Office, the architect or engineer running AutoCAD. The contribution of these programs to the economy can't be measured without looking at the productivity of their users and the quality of their work.
The bridge becomes a national landmark, it is structurally sound, completed on time and under budget.
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I admit I made up the 1% figure, but I believe it is a reasonable estimate. Would you like to challenge the accuracy of the number? If anything, I am convinced that closer scrutiny would reveal it to be too high of an estimate. 2013 US GDP was 17 trillion dollars. Microsoft's 2013 revenue was 77 billion dollars, about 0.5% of GDP. Of course, Microsoft is not a pure software company; some portion of that revenue is hardware, serv
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While I don't disagree with the overall idea, I doubt the government could provide the same benefits without greatly increased costs.
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In a world lacking music, the human species can survive. In a world lacking free sharing of knowledge, the human species is doomed to die. Take your pick.
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Or, the government could pay citizens a flat stipend out of the national budget, and let the citizenry individually/collectively decide how much the artists/studios should get. Based on some of the "art" my government has subsidised in the past, the citizenry would do a far better job of it.
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The entitled asshole is the person that refuses to engage the market for his work then complains about not making any money.
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No, it undermines the economic system of creation.
I agree 100%, but the Slashdot groupthink seems to be that the era of an 'economic system of creation' is over. Opinion seems to be that all content should be made free by creators ('content is just bytes and wants to be free.')
Exception seems to be paid admissions to live performances (music / theatre) as that appears to still be acceptable - Not sure how that works for people like my author-brother, though.
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I'm all for artists and production crews getting paid for their hard work. After all, I survive on copyright and I enjoy getting paid or my work. What I can't get behind is (and let's simplify by making the assumption that the theatrical release brought in just enough to cover production, distribution, and the gap between wholesale and retail, for the BluRay release, that none of that revenue went toward paying for the production of the movie itself, and that there was no profit from the theatrical release)
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Where was I, or anyone else, demanding anyone sell anything at cost? There is no justification for a 3000% wholesale markup. None, whatsoever. My proposal is a reduction from 3000% to 1000%, still a very attractive markup, and an increase of retail margins from 25% to 50%, with the introduction of new, profitable, first-party services and a shift from less profitable 3rd-party streaming to more profitable (for the studios) and less expensive (for the consumer) first-party streaming services. That spells a w
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Yes that works because those directly involve real people on real locations with real organizing doing real work
So yesterday, when I saw many people hard at work in my city filming Continuum they weren't real people on real locations with real organizing doing real work?
Fascinating. What exactly were all those crew members doing?
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Yeah, in places like Europe you can't get certain content even paying, and the content we have is more expensive than in the US (at least videogames and movies). And importing certain content in Spain will make it automatically taxed on customs, with a bullshit "handling" tax our government sneaked upon us, above 60â for importing a $30 videogame or movie. Since few people imports anything here, nobody ever speaks of it.
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Even more ag
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Stan Lee is a douche who ripped off more than his fair share of writers and artists. You'd make a stronger point if you cited Steve Ditko.
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Then why do I willingly pay for both Netflix and Prime? Those services are extremely convenient, but the selection is not always there. Usenet/torrent are good fill-ins for those services, and probably will be until these knuckleheads realize that their government-enabled monopoly isn't really very enforceable anymore.
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Of course I want instant gratification - that's the whole point of convenience. The sad fact is that I can get a better product for free than anything I can pay for.
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We're talking about a pirating scene that still thinks Xvid/AVI is a great format to use. I bet they play them on their Pentium 4s running Windows XP, too.
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Not sure about "usually". [thepiratebay.se]. There are some change [thepiratebay.se], but overall I'd say there's a long way to go [thepiratebay.se].
I wasn't talking about YIFY's encodes specifically. Although anyone who thinks 900 MB for a 720p feature length movie is good is smoking something, even without 5-channel audio.
I'm even seeing two-CD encodes still (movie broken into two 700MB AVI files) with recent films. Ignoring that folks are more likely to be playing right from the PC hard drive or a flash stick, are people still seriously debating the cost di
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