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Torrents Time Lets Anyone Launch Their Own Web Version of Popcorn Time
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.
The tech industry has a terrible focus on what is important.
Jail Time
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
"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.
On the "Torrents Time" github location all I see is an "embed" project that's essentially a JS snippet.
https://github.com/torrentsTim...
https://github.com/torrentsTim...
Where's the source code for:
https://cdn.torrents-time.com/...
https://cdn.torrents-time.com/...
?
> 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.
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?
"...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.
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.
With all this torrent/download legal crap going on a business model that punishes consumers for wanting to see the latest re-hash of worn out actors and storylines, I'm surprised people even both with movies? The "Movie industry" versus "consumers" is like 2 seagulls fighting over a mouldy chip. Forget the entire industry, get out and learn an instrument, phone a friend, hug your partner, etc.
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 some movie theater ticket sales, and then put their entire "loss-prevention" budget into discovering people actually profiting from selling burned blu-rays.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 you want it super-convenient; for $1, not $4 to stream it, and you're not willing to watch/ignore a preview/ad in order to get that price. You WOULD be willing to pay $1, but not the $4 (or $3 + ad) it actually costs.
So in other words "I rip it off, take it illegally, because it would cost $4 for my family to watch it otherwise". The term for that is "petty thief ".
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...
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.
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 dime for the merchandise on the shelves."
(Nevermind that in many cases, those "greedy stockholders" are senior citizens on fixed incomes, whose pension fund owns shares of Macy's, or Viacom, or Disney.)
I suspect you're not as cavalier about theft when it's your property -- intellectual or otherwise -- that's stolen.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
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.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
www.popcorntime-online.io tells me, "Popcorn Time Online is currently not supported by your device."
Fine... but what devices are supported?
Doctor Who leaving both Netflix and Hulu (Plus) this week has my family discussing piracy. I'd rather not, and we're going to wait a few moths to see what's what with the possible BBC streaming channel since the new season of Dr. Who doesn't start until 2017 so we have time.
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...
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.
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 money. On the other hand, people bought $787 million in tickets for Star Wars IV.
if you think you'd like movies made on a budget under a million dollars, I encourage you to go watch some and support that sector. You can find some on Youtube, your choice of zero $ cost (ads) or ad-free with Youtube Red or whatever it's called. The fact is, the vast majority of people don't watch those. They want block buster films that cost $300 million to make.
Personally, I like mid-budget comedies (Hollywood low budget) like Mall Cop. That cost $30 million to make and grossed $143 million. However, many, many more people went to see Star Wars VII, which cost $200 million to make. If the majority of people wanted to watch something cheap like Mall Cop, I'm sure Hollywood would sell us what we want to buy, but the fact is the vast majority of us prefer Star Wars VII, and all those fantastic sets, special effects, etc cost $200 million, plus the marketing budget to get enough people pumped up about to sell enough tickets to cover that $200 million.
What each of us -could- do to reduce the cost of good movies would be to actively seek out good films rather than going to see whatever we see commercials for, or the movie that's advertised on the our McDonald's cups. Marketing is a major expense for movies, and they spend that money because IT WORKS - we buy tickets for movies that are hyped, rather than spending 10 minutes checking the internet to find good movies.
> I'm sure if they are struggling to make a profit from a film because of a few illegitimate copies
It's not "a few copies", it's millions of people skipping out on paying the $2 to stream it. For some types of movies, the -majority- of people don't pay, but instead watch illegal copies. Revenue in this niche has fallen very significantly and I know of several production companies that have gone out of business in the last few years. I happen to have access to payment databases for some companies involved in film production and distribution, so I've seen this with my own eyes.
> 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.
Obviously they've messed some things up with how they try to handle piracy and all. More on that in a moment. This basically goes back to the above point - when the -majority- of your customers have stopped paying you and instead take your product illegally, or any significant percentage have, obviously you're going to respond, and you'll keep trying things to make that stop. Hollywood hasn't necessarily done a GOOD job of this because of the inertia related to having so many different companies involved in each film. For a studio to take on a different business model, they'd also need to reimagine how their contracts with the actor's union (SAG), the special effects houses, the promoters, the theaters, distributors, etc. It's hard to get everyone to change how business is done all once, so we've ended up with some failed approaches. They need some new approaches, such as the deals they've been making with Netflx, and the $200 million in bills racked up by a major production is real money that they actually have to pay, so they'd be bankrupt in a year or two if they ignored piracy and let everyone watch without paying.
yes but do studios care more about the rentals, or the theater show?
hint: its the theater show, because they take a larger chunk of profit from it. yes rentals help pad the bottom line, but they have no bearing in which movies are chosen to be developed, no matter how much you would like to think otherwise. instead you insist on giving your money to a middleman, who skims his bit off the top.
If you want to use your dollars to vote on which movies you want to see, then go to the theaters. Think of the math if the studio gets 50% of your redbox rental, they get 1 dollar, if they take 90% of a theater show, they get 10 dollars from one viewing. so how could the studios give a shit about rentals, they only care about piracy because it keeps people out of the theaters. Theaters make less money on the tickets because they take the larger profit from candy, snacks and food.
i hate to break it to you but that's just simple economics.
> 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, $60 million (a few million people at $2 each) is more than 100% of Reeves salary - you'd need him to pay millions for the privilege of being allowed to work.
Speaking of Reeves Matrix money, did you know he gave most of it away?
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertai...
No Linux client so I fucked. Thanks guys