New App Could Be Hollywood’s Napster

[R0rschach]

The pirated videos, often uploaded from copies given out by Hollywood studios, end up online via BitTorrent, a huge but somewhat disorganized network of people sharing files on the Internet. It wasn’t easy to find any particular title until an unknown group of programmers, who say only that they live in Buenos Aires, created Popcorn Time.

Exactly the way it should be.

 

[terry78]

Basically if you're as smart as you think you are you can find new flicks online with your own abilities as opposed to using any app.

 

[jmc]

Apparently the app is back up. From what I've read this could really shake up the movie industry, the individuals responsible are apparently located throughout the world so making a legal case against any one particular person seems virtually impossible.

 

[Warhammer]

There are so many resources available to get the film you want, whether it's watching it or downloading it. I'm not trying to sound like a snob, but I am so thankful to be tech savvy enough to not need an app like Popcorn Time.

 

[KevanG]

There are so many resources available to get the film you want, whether it's watching it or downloading it. I'm not trying to sound like a snob, but I am so thankful to be tech savvy enough to not need an app like Popcorn Time.

Ugh, some people.

Spoiler

t:

 

[terry78]

A true geek does not use apps. We create them, but we don't use them.

 

[Alex_Spider]

It is not beneficial progress, but advancements in thievery. There is no justification for stealing.

Well I guess you are one among of those "thieves" too, since I'm sure you have borrowed and given to a friend a dvd, a VHS etc. at some point in your life.
You can steal a car, a jewel, a purse but you cannot steal digital bits. You can only copy and share them. And that's the purpose of them. Really, people need to chill out, worrying that the whole movie business will go bankrupt and movies will not being produced anymore.
They said the same things when VHS came out, when songs were playing on the radio, when cd/dvd's came out etc., that would be the death of the industry.
People should have the option to entertain themselves for free. Period.
It shouldn't be a luxury of the rich only.

 

[Teelie]

I'm not going to delve into the laughably how it "hurts everyone in the business" because there's plenty of ways to argue that is inaccurate. Instead I'll refer back to my original posts of how the studios are inept and deliberately backwards in technology and only now are trying to play catch up, ironically by stealing the streaming service concept and content from the likes of Netflix.

You talk of hurting the studios when they make absolutely massive profits... that almost never trickle down to the very people you are claiming it hurts. When a movie flops and no one sees it, does that mean we're all to blame for not seeing it and those (already paid) workers not get some royalties they have never gotten before?

Okay, I did have to point out one obvious flaw in this line of thinking there.

 

[Alex_Spider]

I'm not going to delve into the laughably how it "hurts everyone in the business" because there's plenty of ways to argue that is inaccurate. Instead I'll refer back to my original posts of how the studios are inept and deliberately backwards in technology and only now are trying to play catch up, ironically by stealing the streaming service concept and content from the likes of Netflix.

You talk of hurting the studios when they make absolutely massive profits... that almost never trickle down to the very people you are claiming it hurts. When a movie flops and no one sees it, does that mean we're all to blame for not seeing it and those (already paid) workers not get some royalties they have never gotten before?

Okay, I did have to point out one obvious flaw in this line of thinking there.

I think he referred more to the crew and staff that work hard to make a movie, not the studio excecs themselves. That is a concept I can understand and get behind, but I would first propose a cut from the ridicoulous amount of money that actors are being payed to go to the hard working crew that build sets, cameramen etc. That way studios could save millions of money.
But no, in the modern world we have to overglorify actors and pay them astronomical numbers so the world can see them as some kind of demigods through the celebrity media exposition.

 

[Destructus86]

If hollywood and networks would get with the times I think that piracy would drop. Not all the way mind you...there are still those that want everything for free. But I think a lot of people would go the legit way rather than piracy if networks gave them a choice. There are a couple shows I....obtain...simply because I don't have cable and the networks do not provide any other means of buying the episodes.

 

[Destructus86]

Apparently the app is back up. From what I've read this could really shake up the movie industry, the individuals responsible are apparently located throughout the world so making a legal case against any one particular person seems virtually impossible.

And the industry needs a good shake up. Seriously. Stuff like this needs to keep happening because it's the only way to push studios into getting with the times. They are stubborn and sometimes the only way to deal with something that's stubborn is to give it a good kick in the butt.

 

[terry78]

If hollywood and networks would get with the times I think that piracy would drop. Not all the way mind you...there are still those that want everything for free. But I think a lot of people would go the legit way rather than piracy if networks gave them a choice. There are a couple shows I....obtain...simply because I don't have cable and the networks do not provide any other means of buying the episodes.

That's where it gets clouded due to the few that spoil the bunch, because you have those vocal minorities who want every ****ing piece of entertainment free of charge regardless of how good a deal they may be getting.

 

[Alex_Spider]

That's where it gets clouded due to the few that spoil the bunch, because you have those vocal minorities who want every ****ing piece of entertainment free of charge regardless of how good a deal they may be getting.

And what's so bad about it? What if I watch a free movie and rate it somewhere 6-7 with 10 being perfect? Should I have an option to pay half the money the dvd costs, since I didn't love it but didn't hate it either.

I like how easily you judge people though for wanting things for free whenever they have the choice. They don't STEAL, they just don't feel like spending money in movies that in their majority will watch one time only and will fill their room with useless cheap plastic.

You know what? Let's make as many things we can for free like food distribution, public transportation, health care etc. not just movies and music.
Then we wouldn't be worrying nor feel guilty how the actors and crew will get paid if we don't buy their movies.

 

[Hyde]

The only time I watch movies online is if it is an older movie. Like I recently watched Anchorman.

Same, mostly. And TV shows.

 

[terry78]

And what's so bad about it? What if I watch a free movie and rate it somewhere 6-7 with 10 being perfect? Should I have an option to pay half the money the dvd costs, since I didn't love it but didn't hate it either.

I like how easily you judge people though for wanting things for free whenever they have the choice. They don't STEAL, they just don't feel like spending money in movies that in their majority will watch one time only and will fill their room with useless cheap plastic.

You know what? Let's make as many things we can for free like food distribution, public transportation, health care etc. not just movies and music.
Then we wouldn't be worrying nor feel guilty how the actors and crew will get paid if we don't buy their movies.

Regardless of people doing things for the art and what not, it's still their job, for which they should receive some type of compensation.

 

[KevanG]

I usually just use it to watch certain tv shows that I miss or can't get a hold of without paying a huge amount. Like the Tom Baker Doctor Who series is around $315 as a set, imported + shipping. My roommate has cable and sometimes we'll watch a show but most times it's easier just to download it and watch it later on.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

I usually just use it to watch certain tv shows that I miss or can't get a hold of without paying a huge amount. Like the Tom Baker Doctor Who series is around $315 as a set, imported + shipping. My roommate has cable and sometimes we'll watch a show but most times it's easier just to download it and watch it later on.

I'd like to hear terry and enterthemadness' response to a ridiculous situation like this.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

Well I was paying $10/month for something I rarely used then I'd flip through the options for 30 mins or so then go watch some old Doctor Who on my laptop.

Eh, if there's very little on there that suits you, makes sense to ditch it.

 

[Alex_Spider]

Regardless of people doing things for the art and what not, it's still their job, for which they should receive some type of compensation.

You're forgetting though, that the nature of the economic system is that always a certain field of profession will get screwed over another.

It is the reason why we do a research before we go for shopping at the grocery store, or when browsing products on ebay, making sure we buy the cheapest product possible.

Or think of it this way. If tomorrow we all had the technical skills to grow 90% of our daily food on our yard, instead of paying money at the grocery store, would that be considered "unethical", because it hurts the market and puts them out of business?

Actually, what people really want from a piece of art in the first place, is to share it with as many people as possible and listen to the feedback, regardless if it will be sold successfully. That's the way it should be anyway. I understand that the artists got to live somehow, but that's just how it is..Maybe they should have a backup job just in case.

And I am one of those that the advancement of the Internet hurts my business actually. Back, it was very hard for an average internet user to design his company webpage and was forced to pay a large amount of money to a designer like me. Now, there are countless free apps that produce high quality websites, as if they were done by a professional designer. But you know what? I will not go blaming the internet and the people for not giving me their money and choose the easy and free way. I just accept it as it is.

 

[Teelie]

And now it's back.

“The YTS team will now be picking up the Popcorn Time project and continuing on like previously. We are in a better position copyright wise as for us, because it’s build on our API, it’s as if we have built another interface to our website. We are no worse off managing the project than we would be just supplying the movies,” the dev explains.

 

[Alex_Spider]

And now it's back.

https://medium.com/p/93f890b8c9f4
Goodbye Popcorn Time - This experiment has come to an end

Spoiler

We are enormously proud of this project. It is the biggest thing we’ve ever achieved. And we’ve assembled an amazing team in the process, with people we love to work with. And to be honest, right now every single one of us has a knot in our stomachs. We love Pochoclín and everything it stands for, and we feel that we are letting our amazing contributors down. The ones who translated the app into 32 languages, some of which we weren’t even aware existed. We stand in awe at what open source community can do.

We are startup geeks, first and foremost. We read Techcrunch, Reddit and Hacker News. We got frontpaged in Hacker News twice. At the same time. We got articles on Time Magazine, Fast Company, TechCrunch, TUAW, Ars Technica, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, Gizmodo, PC Magazine and Torrent Freak, just to name a few. And we got some action on TV and Radio shows, and this doesn’t even include the many interviews we had to reject due to the barrage of media attention.

And they were not chastising us. They were cheering for us. We became the underdog that would fight for the consumer. Some people we respect -scratch that- some of our heroes spoke wonders of Popcorn Time, which is a lot more than what we wanted to get out of an experiment we threw together in a couple of weeks.

Popcorn Time as a project is legal. We checked. Four Times.

But, as you may know, that’s rarely enough. Our huge reach gave us access to a lot of people, from newspapers to the creators of many sites and apps that had a huge global reach. We learned a lot from these people, especially that standing against an old fashioned industry has it’s own associated costs. Costs that no one should have to pay in any way, shape or form.

You know what’s the best thing about Popcorn Time? That tons of people agreed in unison that the movie industry has way too many ridiculous restrictions on way too many markets. Take Argentina for example: streaming providers seem to believe that “There’s Something About Mary” is a recent movie. That movie would be old enough to vote here.

The bulk of our users is not in the US. It’s everywhere else. Popcorn Time got installed on every single country on Earth. Even the two that don’t have internet access.

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.

And maybe, that asking nicely for a few bucks a month to watch whichever movie you want is a bit better than that.

Popcorn Time is shutting down today. Not because we ran out of energy, commitment, focus or allies. But because we need to move on with our lives.

Our experiment has put us at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love. And that’s not a battle we want a place in.

 

[Teelie]

I expect it to be back up again in a few days it keeps yo-yo-ing on and off.