Popcorn Time 4.0

https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop

by ncdlek • 6 years ago

317 219 6 years ago

Just in time for the coronavirus lockdown that has the major ISPs throttling torrents to nothing due to network congestion.

llcoolv2• 6 years ago

I am not really sure if it is the ISPs' conspiracy or that there is simply a lot more demand than supply. E.g. limited seeding a lot of leeching. Last night I wasn't able to open any of the two bittorrent catalogs that I use (PBay and rarbg).

wayoutthere3• 6 years ago

Oh I don't think it's a conspiracy; I think it's just network congestion. Torrent traffic has been QoSed to hell for a long time (as it should be tbh), so when there's congestion it's the first thing to get dropped.

FWIW I'm getting a lot of frameskips from my video chats, so I think it's legitimately congested.

yellow_lead• 6 years ago

Demonsaw.com

provides an IRC-router like interface that can be used to share files over encrypted and obfuscated HTTP. Give it a look if you're having torrent problems.

llcoolv2• 6 years ago

Or ghettoflix as we call it :D

Is this the same repo that is in Archlinux AUR?

captn3m0• 6 years ago

Yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604114

awicz2• 6 years ago

Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing? I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell?

Edit: Apparently this question has upset a good number of people. It was a genuine inquiry. It would have been nice to see your thoughts in written form instead of the downvotes.

To those that did answer--thanks! Really incredible how complicated the licensing arrangements are across the world.

sz4kerto2• 6 years ago

For example, here (in Hungary) we are paying some extra 'contribution' whenever we buy storage (HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks) that is intended to compensate artists and distributors for lost revenue because the assumption is that we'll likely store pirated stuff on them.

Therefore downloading is not illegal here (sharing is, which kind of puts torrents into a strange place).

The world is a bit crazy, isn't it.

awicz2• 6 years ago

Wow. That is an interesting model! Do you know how they determine how the funds are distributed?

lubonay2• 6 years ago

What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? That's just a fine where they assume you'd pirate stuff in the future!

whatch• 6 years ago

Same in Russia. But they tax not only storage but basically everything that can play music and/or video including desktops, laptops, tablets and phones.

phito• 6 years ago

The problem is that shows/movies are spread all over these platforms, or are not even available on them. I'm happy to pay my Netflix subscription each months, but if a show I want to watch is not on it, I will pirate it. I'm not going to pay for multiple video streaming services each months.

brewdad• 6 years ago

It gets really frustrating when one service has seasons 1-3 of a show but I need to subscribe to another service to get seasons 4 and 5. I've even seen the case where season 1 and 3 are on a service but season 2 is somewhere else.

Add in the fact that these deals change all the time so season 3 might be somewhere else by the time I'm caught up and ready to watch it and the whole system is madness.

fartcannon• 6 years ago

I also don't think there's a justification for using it, however it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.

Additionally, the loss is not one to one. Each pirated video does not equate to a lost sale. The fact that people imply that is ludicrous.

Man, I haven't said that stuff in like 20 years. Takes me back to naptser day. Now someone ask me if I would download a car!

close042• 6 years ago

Sometimes as a legal user you are faced with far more obstacles than the illegal user. All kinds of limitations that are made to curb piracy but actually just hurt legitimate users. This applies to every type of protected content, be it music, video, games, ebooks, etc.

This makes paying users less likely to sympathize with the content provider. And then you see those transparent attempts to skew numbers so they can generate some compassion ("This episode of GoT was pirated 30 million times which means we lost 30 million possible subscribers!!11" type thing) and you start having a really bad impression about them whether you pay for the service o not.

I am forced to torrent content that I already legally pay for just to get a proper subtitle or voice over for example, because sometimes I get a different experience for the same content based on the country I'm in.

cdubzzz• 6 years ago

Good excuse to introduce The IT Crowd to those who may have missed it (:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

q3k• 6 years ago

We were fine for a while. Netflix killed film/series piracy for me - for a while it literally made no sense.

Then, every copyright owner realized they want a slice of the streaming cake - (HBO, Disney+, all the cable networks...) and started making their content exclusive on their platforms. Now, instead of a single Netflix (or anyone else, really) subscription I would have to pay for a dozen, that I would rarely use for more than one series/film. Or I can't even get it at all, because it's not available in my country. Or only available with subtitles in a language I don't understand. Or I can't watch it on the hardware I want to.

The music industry got their shit together and even the most copyright-paranoid artists are on Spotify, or on Bandcamp (which is subscription-free). When the film industry does the same I'll gladly start paying them money again.

deanstag2• 6 years ago

In that case, what is the maximum amount of subscription fee that you are willing to shell out before resorting to piracy?

ValentineC• 6 years ago

Relevant Reddit comic: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/bcdlbf/hello_old_fr...

p2t2p2• 6 years ago

Never were fine in Australia. Half of the Dr. Who were absent because of "legal reasons". I can't recall now (I don't have subscription for almost 3 years) but there were bunch of TV shows I wanted to binge and they were unavailable or partially available. Big Bang Theory never were on Netflix IIRC, I had to pay for one of the seasons. I don't think anything from HBO is there and so on.

I'm not playing those games, I can torrent whatever I want to seen in better quality - with subtitles in variety of languages, HD or SD, some number of audio tracks with different translations if I wish (even though I don't need it after leaving in English speaking country for some time) and so on.

It's just shitty user experience.

wlesieutre3• 6 years ago

Same boat, I haven't torrented a movie in years because Netflix gave me a good way to pay for them.

But now I have two streaming subscriptions and the catalog between them is still too sparse. I think I'd need 4 or 5 separate subscriptions to stop losing the "is this somewhere that I can watch it?" game.

Plus I have a VPN account that my phone and tablet are connected through almost all the time. I don't like having to leave that turned off when I want to watch something, often I'm multitasking and it means whatever else I'm doing is now connecting from my home IP address.

uncletammy• 6 years ago

The music industry got their shit together and even the most copyright-paranoid artists are on Spotify...

To be fair, unless their play count rivals Taylor Swift, those artists probably still aren't making much money. I have quite a few friends who are professional musicians and this is a common complaint.

Im nit saying spotify isnt a positive thing for consumers (and maybe also artists in the long run) but there's definitely a tradeoff to having one platform to rule them all.

_ea1k• 6 years ago

I remember when people complained that cable wasn't à la carte. Now we complain that streaming services are à la carte. Its a fun cycle.

sbarre5• 6 years ago

And in the meantime, you're just choosing not to consume their content, right?

lubonay2• 6 years ago

You can't find everything on streaming services, actually. Sometimes your only hope is to find a torrent and make a "back-up".

mab122• 6 years ago

Honestly I don't have moral problem with downloading movies that are forgotten/not available by any other means.

vslira• 6 years ago

I don't pirate, nowadays mostly because I already have a couple of subscriptions and not enough time to consume all the content I already can.

But for me the answer is fairly obvious: availability. If video content was as convenient to consume as music, then pirating wouldn't be making a comeback. You can subscribe to all major streaming services and it's likely you won't find a given niche tv series or cult movie, unlike with music that with a single spotify sub you can listen to basically any formally published album (Ok, I know it's not strictly true, but it's closer to this state than with video)

mbanzi• 6 years ago

I don't use torrents etc but to give you a customer perspective: Because of the proliferation of services and the lock-in each one of them is trying to promote, if you want to follow your favourite shows you would have to subscribe to all of them and it becomes expensive very quickly. As an European there is always the problem that some great shows that are available in the US might not be available in your country. To make mattter worse, if you're in switzerland like me you might have the option to watch a show only in German (which I don't speak) and they don't even give you access to the original english soundtrack. Faced with all these annoyances, I canceled them all. If they don't care about the customer experience I don't care about them. I use a (legal) service which allows me to watch on demand any TV show broadcast from most of European TVs in the last 7 days. It works well, it's cheap and most shows have they original english soundtrack. Some other people use torrents or dodgey streaming websites.

aargh_aargh• 6 years ago

Which service do you use?

a_imho• 6 years ago

https://stallman.org/articles/end-war-on-sharing.html

KMnO4• 6 years ago

The argument for piracy is always a mix between those who aren’t willing to pay for the media, and those who aren’t willing to put up with the limitations and restrictions of DRM.

Sometimes you can compromise with one side if the other is really good. Spotify is a good example, where it really is more convenient to pay $10 for every song you could ever think of.

On the other hand, there’s no similar buffet-style movie service that has more than 10% of the movies I want to watch.

It’s hard for someone to justify paying $60/month on the four streaming services (since the market is so fragmented) and still not able to watch Iron Man 2 (though 1 and 3 are there)

sksksk• 6 years ago

To me, stealing implies depriving someone of something.

If I take your car, you don't have a car anymore.

If I make a copy of your movie, you still have that movie.

Arguably, you're being deprived of the money from the sale of the movie, but there are already other terms that can be used (piracy, copyright infringement).

clarry• 6 years ago

Arguably, you're being deprived of the money from the sale of the movie

And that's only wishy washy wish-I-had-money, nothing real. (And even that isn't really the case since sale and piracy are not mutually exclusive)

tuyiown• 6 years ago

You have to separate morality and legal technicalities to answer this properly.

For the legal part, stealing is for physical objects, eg. the victim doesn't have disposal of this stolen good anymore. This is not true for intellectual «property» since it's a copy. This is why copyright & copyright infringement has been created, whose original purpose was to protect authors from publisher and protect publishers that made advances to authors from other publishers.

For the moral part, you have no clear answer, circulation of free copies obviously reduces revenues of authors, but also it allows access of content to people that wouldn't have paid for it anyways, case where the loss of revenue is shaky.

To extend further, it's related to consumer frustration, while it's no question that being frustrated if you don't own a Ferrai is frivolous, if you can't afford it, you have to steal it from someone, the frustration occurred for copyright content is solely based on publisher/distributor strategy on maximizing revenue. The thing is, total revenue has a, albeit unknown, maximum theoretical possible, hence after a trigger frustration left is purely and solely a strategy to protect revenue. In the end, you get frustrated people just to have copyright holders a better peace of mind and revenue, and nothing else, so there's a moral balance to keep that you can't reduce to a black and white situation.

esarbe2• 6 years ago

"Stealing" is taking something from someone. This is not stealing because you are not taking anything from anyone.

You could called it "unlicensed copying" if you want, that's legally sound.

throwaway9d0291• 6 years ago

For me the argument is and has basically always been availability.

I don't live in the United States and if I want to watch say Westworld, even though it's airing on the national broadcaster for free, it only does so in French, which I don't understand. There's nowhere I can legally watch the English version so my only option is piracy.

In other cases it's because the market is fragmented. Were I still living in the US, I'd happily pay $20/mo for a Netflix subscription (and do) but I wouldn't pay $10/m for each of Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO for American stuff plus another $10/mo for each anime streaming service that has an exclusive.

p2t2p2• 6 years ago

Recently I torrented this nice little piece of art: https://www.discogs.com/Django-Reinhardt-Djangologie-1928-19.... Now, good luck finding where to buy it =). (I did try)

Spotify doesn't have even half of my collection of Johnny Horton (which I torrented as well).

Also, I'm afraid of censorship. Some of the early 20th century county singers we throwing n-words left right and center and you won't find them on Spotify. Same for Apple Music. With Apple Music it even worse. Music disappears from the library _suddenly_. Just because same shady firm has it's license expired in Australia. Internet is full of stories of people who were unable to re-download movies or music form iTunes because the right owner has deleted it from the store. No, no money back.

So the only place where I pay for music is Bandcamp, which lets you download the stuff you paid for, right here, right now in variety of formats including lossless.

arkh• 6 years ago

Better ease of use: I'm in France, I don't know what service has what or for how much time. Most French services will tend to propose dubbed version only, or not let me remove subtitles if I don't need them. With torrents I get access to everything on one application, with the audio and subtitle settings I want. Also I have a shitty connection so if I want good quality streaming is no-no: so I download and watch once it's done and when I want.

Edit: and for the moral part, most Hollywood people preach for communism. So let them show the way.

mping• 6 years ago

Of course it is. Stealing is taking what is not given. People can play with words and logic all day but that's it. If you take something that was not given to you it's stealing. In case of torrents, the owner of the media obviously didn't sell it nor gave it.

aaaa324234• 6 years ago

Most likely the most legitimate reason is archiving. Streaming services often offer very poor quality for even 3 year old shows that make them look like they are from 10 years ago. Meanwhile shows from the 80s look much better as long as they are torrented.

ta1235235• 6 years ago

When you steal from someone, you take something that belongs to them. If someone steals your bike, you don't have a bike anymore. When you torrent, you create a _copy_ of your friends _copy_. your friend still has his copy, but now you have a copy too.

Hope that helps

beatgammit3• 6 years ago

Legally, it is stealing. However, just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong.

However, you could also think of it like the digital equivalent of sharing. If someone purchases a movie or TV series on physical disks, they could loan it to you without breaking the law. In fact, they could even make a copy of the disk and not break the law. The only way to break the law this way is by having multiple copies in use at the same time. This is just digital sharing without checks in place to make sure multiple copies of the content aren't used simultaneously.

That being said, who is really harmed when I give someone a copy for free? I'm not stealing from the content creator (I paid, after all), and I'm not selling it, and there's no guarantee that the person I gave it to would have purchased it. If the creator hasn't lost anything and I'm not taking credit for it, nobody was harmed. In my eyes, this makes piracy acceptable as long as I don't sell it.

If we didn't have such strong copyright protections, content creators would be forced to compete with piracy by offering convenience, but instead they sue. Netflix has proven to reduce piracy because they offer convenience, but that only works for content they can provide.

josho2• 6 years ago

Legally, it is stealing

No it isn't. If I steal your bike you no longer have a bike. You no longer have the benefits of using it for transportation, society is worse off. As you explained copyright is very different from that. So, let's not call these 2 different things the same.

belorn• 6 years ago

A genuine inquiry should get a genuine answer. Let me try to provide one.

Copyright law with its duration of 95 years after the authors death is practically universally seen as the result of money being transfer from large companies into the control of politicians that voted in favor of the law. Normally when laws get written as the result of money changing hand we call it corruption, but as the supreme court have show, that is not always so.

Some people have tried to fix the problem from within, but the US political system makes third-party initiatives like that rather hard. Internationally, the result of the corrupt process spread through international trade agreements where nations has to either implement the same laws or risk getting trade sanctions from the US, and thus internationally nations has accepted the same corrupt law in exchange for getting through trade deals.

There is no moral ground for following current copyright law except blind following. Instead what we get is individual moral decisions where for example a person might feel it being acceptable to view 95 minus 1 year after the authors death old video on youtube, but find it wrong to view a recently released cinematic movie. Each person uniquely define when, where and how they feel copyrights exclusive monopoly is morally defensible and when it is not. The result is that you get about as many different moral view on the issue as there is people.

cjg• 6 years ago

It isn't stealing. After you torrent something, someone else doesn't have less.

It also isn't treated as stealing by (most countries'?) legal frameworks. It's copyright infringement - and not even commercial infringement (where you are making money by infringing). Non-commercial copyright infringement isn't even criminal - it's a civil matter.

k__2• 6 years ago

What did they change?

TheGallopedHigh• 6 years ago

They likely have a release notes...

k__2• 6 years ago

I looked on Github, Reddit, and their website. Nothing. :/

seemethere• 6 years ago

Changelog hasn't been updated in 3 years. :/

https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/blob/v0....

1_player5• 6 years ago

Say what you will about stealing, illegality, unsavouriness.

If the film industry would collectively take their head out of their arses and provide such a simple interface and wide catalogue to the masses, they would make hundreds of billions.

I would literally pay $50 a month for an official and legal version of this.

The end users don't really care that it is not possible because "legal reasons". This app proves otherwise and I wholeheartedly approve of their mission.

EDIT: if I would pay $50 a month, why am I not buying/renting movies on iTunes or Amazon for the same amount? For the same reason Spotify or Apple Music are making a killing. Give me a flat rate and let me watch _everything_, it's hard to decide if that new movie just out is worth spending $15 on. Might be crap.

esarbe2• 6 years ago

The whole business model of the content industry is based on perverting the idea of copyright and extending it beyond any reasonable limit. And with copyright terms extended to eternity and beyond, they are effectively stealing the cultural intellectual property of every living generation, depriving us of the basic means to creatively comment on our own cultural heritage.

So, I have no problem with "stealing".

BoorishBears5• 6 years ago

I don’t really get this.

The media industry collectively thinks what they make is worth the collective cost of all their streaming services (probably hundreds of dollars a month).

They’ve spent BILLIONS making the movies that make up these catalogs.

And before you say “well they already made it back” let me remind you we’re on a tech forum, what industry makes the most money from “selling the same experience over and over again until your margins are nutty”

You feel you have the right to watch EVERYTHING they make, a subset of a few lifetimes of content just won’t do for the modern man.

So instead of sticking it to them and not buying into their game until they’re forced to reform...

you go and spend time illegally downloading their movies so that instead of getting the message “we don’t make stuff good enough to justify it’s price”, they get the message “we’re doing so well that people are stealing our content, go lobby for copyright laws harder or something Legal”.

Because more media than people who spent 100s of dollars to experience not that long ago is not ok, you need to have ALL of it. And if they don’t feel it’s in their best interests, you’re going to steal it

(and yes, it’s stealing enough with the “but I didn’t take the original”, why don’t you go copy all your employer's IP and post it on pastebin then tell the cops you just made a copy”)

I personally pay for like, 2 services?

There is A LOT of media on there. For 30$ a month I’m getting access to more shoes and movies than cable would provide for 100s of dollars once upon a time. More than any sane person could watch in one lifetime.

Sometimes I have to forgo watching something because it’s not on the service I want. I don’t bother going to steal it. Once upon a time I was a kid with no money and no job, less impulse control and much more time to waste, so I would, let me not pretend I’ve never done it....

But now I’m an adult, I can decide not to watch something and watch something else if I feel it’s not worth my money.

If there’s a movie worth enough to me I can usually pay for access to it specifically (one off payment before someone starts waving the subscriptions are murder stick... on a tech forum).

But that’s actually never happened. Because there’s so much content there, unless you have this mentality of “I must have it all, I deserve it all, nothing less will do” I don’t see how 50$ a month of services (your cutoff) would not be enough.

imgabe4• 6 years ago

The media industry collectively thinks what they make is worth the collective cost of all their streaming services (probably hundreds of dollars a month).

Sure, they're entitled to think whatever they want. The reality is that the marginal cost of making a digital copy is near zero. Their work is widely available for free to anyone who cares to look for it. And it is extremely unlikely that the average person would ever experience any negative consequences for getting it for free.

You can think that's right or wrong or try to shame people all you want, but those are simple facts. Another fact is that for a large portion of the world, the content is not available legally even if you want to pay.

So, the content industry can learn to accept those facts and make a good service that makes some money. (Still many billions of dollars) or they can keep operating under the delusion that people should pay even more billions of dollars and get less.

rmellow• 6 years ago

The movie industry doesn't lobby because "their product is so good people are stealing it". They lobby because they can, as do other industries no one wants anything to do with.

My country passed laws to have a minimum percentage of national movies showing in theatres at any time. Lobbying has nothing to do with demand.

beatgammit3• 6 years ago

I don't use PopcornTime or otherwise pirate, but I completely understand the motivation of those that do. Personally, I just watch fewer movies because the value just isn't there. I subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime mostly because they're inexpensive and have a decent selection of kids shows. I occasionally watch a movie or TV series there, but not nearly as frequently as I did when our local grocery store offered DVD rentals for $1-2 with a large selection (much larger than RedBox offers).

These days, if there's nothing good on Netflix, I play video games or read a book because both of those offer far more value/dollar. If the movie industry offered $2 rentals for everything other than new releasees, I'd watch more movies. I'm only willing to pay $5 to watch a movie if it's a new release and I really want to watch it. I also rarely go to the theater as well because $10+ is too much for that experience unless it's opening weekend for a film I've been waiting for (we usually go on Tuesdays for the discounted rate for regular entertainment).

I wish the film industry would recognize the opportunity they have that's evidenced by projects like PopcornTime. If they make a movie platform with a nearly complete catalogue, people will use it. It's annoying to check multiple streaming platforms to see where something is available, and it's annoying to pay $5/movie to rent (that's about discounted theater prices, but without the theater experience).

alexis_fr• 6 years ago

Given a lot of countries are declaring the state of emergency, « state of war » for Emmanuel Macron (France), a lot of them can and will require the use of hotel, cars, or even « nationalize companies » (Italy and France). Why not also accepting that the confinement shouldn’t be an opportunity for copyright hoarders to become rich, and just temporarily allow or do nothing, so that entertainment at home be available. Perhaps even make them temporarily legal and end up with making them permanently legal.

Sometimes war-times measures become permanent (female vote in France, gun confiscation and the Tignes dam all started during the WWII) when they are good.

tnolet• 6 years ago

Here here. Been saying this for years as a satisfied Popcorn time users. Been paying for Spotify already for years too. If a legal Popcorn Time existed, I'd signup directly.

Avalaxy2• 6 years ago

Just a minor nitpick, but it's "hear hear", not "here here", as it refers to hearing what is said.

gerardnll• 6 years ago

'... it's hard to decide if that new movie just out is worth spending $15 on. Might be crap.'

As well a restaurant might be crap too, or a website or mason work... look up reviews before buying.

davidmurdoch• 6 years ago

Except looking at reviews for a movie spoils the movie.

efdee• 6 years ago

Or don't, and watch Netflix or Popcorn Time.

The market is speaking.

pbhjpbhj2• 6 years ago

If you go too a restaurant and the food is really terrible, then you can refuse to pay, send a dish back, get a reduction/waiver of the bill - even the best places get it wrong sometimes.

Anyone ever got money back from Amazon/Apple/whoever because a movie they sold you sucked?

golergka2• 6 years ago

That's two conversations mixed up in one: one about what is, as in, a prediction of what we can expect people to do, without any value judgements, and another about what ought to be, as in, what's our moral and ethical opinion of this behavior. And while the second one is a very tempting rabbit hole of flame wars, the first one is very clear cut: if you give people access to everything (or almost everything) for a reasonable subscription price, they won't pirate stuff anymore.

msla• 6 years ago

That's two conversations mixed up in one: one about what is, as in, a prediction of what we can expect people to do, without any value judgements, and another about what ought to be, as in, what's our moral and ethical opinion of this behavior.

Economists are careful to distinguish between 'positive' and 'normative' economics, where positive economics is what's observed to happen and normative economics is what someone things ought to happen, morally, for precisely that reason. There are always the people who can't or won't make that distinction, however, including the people who refuse to distinguish between describing something and expressing approval of it. This has a particular relevance in any online community with a downvote function: If enough people are offended by a description of a state of affairs, any discussion of it will be downvoted to oblivion and will be impossible to hold in that forum, especially if downvotes are tied to how much you can participate in that forum in some fashion.

lqet• 6 years ago

Having used various streaming apps (Netflix, Watchever, Apple TV, the media libraries of T-Online here in Germany and various libraries of local TV stations), I am surprised that the interface, usability and stability of my basic home entertainment center (Kodi running on an old Raspberry Pi 2) are still vastly superior.

I, too, would happily pay 50 EUR / month for ANY streaming service with a decent interface and a movie library that covers the 20th century. The easiest and cheapest (and mostly legal) way to watch classics for me is still to go to the public library (with an extensive DVD / BluRay collection), rent the movie, rip it and watch it via Kodi. This costs me 10 EUR a year.

That being said, what we need is a standardized way to stream movie and music content, and handle payments. This would include a standardized API to list available content with descriptions, images and prices. This would make it possible to use a private home entertainment system like Kodi efficiently and legally and would get rid of the need to use / install 100,000 different apps for each streaming service. It completely eludes why the current level of abstraction between the different providers is the app, the only explanations I can come up with is branding, a total lack of collaboration between the providers and copyright protection.

Holmes3• 6 years ago

Apple built iTunes on the success of Kazaa.

optimuspaul2• 6 years ago

that is an absurd assertion. iTunes predates Kazaa by several months and iTunes never had any P2P capabilities.

antirapepolice• 6 years ago

If the film industry would collectively take their head out of their arses and provide such a simple interface and wide catalogue to the masses, they would make hundreds of billions.

They are already making hundred of billions

And will make more now thanks to house confinement

Why should they change model just now?

I would literally pay $50 a month for an official and legal version of this.

But I'm paying zero right now...

And the chances of getting caught are slightly above zero.

1_player5• 6 years ago

They are already making hundred of billions

My point is they would make hundred of billions MORE. Some will still illegally download, but most would flock to such a service.

We're not all criminals because it's fun. We just hate the inconvenience of trying to watch a movie legally in 2020, especially if you're outside of US, or worse yet, outside of the Western world.

CJefferson2• 6 years ago

An official and legal version of this wouldn't be $50/month, it would be more like $200/month. It includes movies from every major company, and films while they are still in the cinema.

sschueller• 6 years ago

That isn't far off what cable costs...

josho2• 6 years ago

Streaming music has set the price floor. For the price of an album a month you can stream all the music you want, even new releases.

What makes you think movies should have a multiple of 10 instead of 1 for a monthly subscription fee?

I'll attempt an answer, the cost should be whatever the market will bare. The market could likely boom at $50/mth, but at $200 it would be niche. The industry seems to even be coalescing around $30/mth (my guess) through consumers paying for multiple services.

hysan• 6 years ago

To me, $50 seems more realistic because of data caps. You simply cannot stream enough content nowadays without forking over more money to ISPs. Pricing would become a balancing act. It’s an interesting thought experiment to wonder how those two giants would battle out the responsibility of bandwidth.

saagarjha4• 6 years ago

For that price it would be cheaper for me to “buy” the movies I want to watch outright. You’d have to watch a lot of movies to recoup the cost.

dfxm123• 6 years ago

This doesn't really explain your position on why you don't just buy/rent $50 worth of movies per month.

edit: I don't have Spotify or Apple Music. Can you expand on this without putting it in terms of those services?

saagarjha4• 6 years ago

This doesn't really explain your position on why you don't just buy/rent $50 worth of movies per month.

Isn’t their position that they’d like this thing to exist? I don’t see how you need to have a Spotify or Apple Music account to understand the argument.

1_player5• 6 years ago

Flat fee. All you can eat.

I don't want to do the cost-benefit analysis of "do I want to spend $X for this movie?". I can afford it, I'm not counting pennies, but when I see a price figure I spend a few seconds deciding whether it's worth it or not, and sometimes the answer is NO.

On subscription services you just click and enjoy. I'm already paying for it, the answer is always YES.

But there's a limit. I will not pay for 10 different services at $9.99/mo to have access to 70% of the movie repertoire. No way in hell.

basch• 6 years ago

I'm going to link to one of my old comments and a reply from fouric - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482394

I think the bigger issue than paying for multiple services is duplicate licensing. If I sign up for DirecTV, Amazon Prime, and CBS how many shows am I triple licensing? If all these companies want me to sign up for multiple services, there needs to be a way for them to pass "already licensed" information to each other, and pro-rate their bills accordingly.
ATT, Comcast, Disney, CBS already own almost all the historical content. Id rather pay a small licensing fee to those 4 and then be able to watch their content on any platform, rather than deal with multiple middlemen that have CBS, Comcast, Disney, ATT licensing costs built into their product price. IF I select DirecTV/ATT as my "licensing manager" then any time I sign up for Disney+, Peacock+, CBS All Access, I want a discount off one of the two ends (would make more sense to give all my subscription info to DirecTV and get a DirecTV discount. Then DirecTV can go to Disney and say "17% of our customers dont need to pay Disney licensing costs, weve adjusted our payment to you accordingly.)
fouric: This is actually really important. While it's immoral to take the results of someone else's work without compensating them, it's also immoral to charge your customers multiple times for the same product.

It would really benefit the viewer to decouple "what am I licensed for" from "what app do i need to play this" and just allow my media player to access all my libraries regardless of which licensing/billing manager and video player I choose to use.. Movies Anywhere, Vudu, Roku, Apple and Amazon have made some progress on this front, but its still way too convoluted.

madez• 6 years ago

It is not stealing. It may be illegal, but it isn't stealing nor robbery. You may be violating the copyright law, but nobody is taken away any object and there is no threat of violence. When people get access to copyrighted works, then at first, it is good for people. Only then the idea is that the creators can't make a living by producing those works. We can solve that differently, without using copyright. Copyright is a weirdly anti-market and authoritarian concept where the government artificially makes something scarce by punishing supply. In any case, distributing stuff is not stealing. /rant

time0ut• 6 years ago

I absolutely agree on the rental risk factor. It discourages discovery of new things. In addition to that, the rental terms on these services suck.

Here's an example: A month ago, my wife and I rented Casino from Amazon Prime for like $3 or whatever. It is a long movie, so we paused half way through with a plan to finish it the next day. The next evening rolls around and we discover we only had 24 hours to finish it once we had started it. We just paid again cause its only $3, but also resolved to never rent from Amazon Prime again.

These systems are a worse experience than pirating. It doesn't have to be that way.

pb060• 6 years ago

I'd be happy to keep paying for a legal service if I could watch movies in original language (movies are dubbed here in Italy) with English subtitles. Doesn't seem to be technically impossible so is it due to legal issues? If so, isn't that insane?

ezzzzz• 6 years ago

Not trying to be snarky, just something worth considering... Owning physical media is not as popular as it once was due to the multitude of streaming options available. Subsequently, the cost of physical media has gone down due to the popularity of streaming. If you pick up some $5 blue-rays for older films here and there, or hit up a used place, $50/month can go pretty far. Best part, after a year or so, you would have amassed a pretty sizeable collection of media, that is yours to watch, forever (as long as you retain copy of the media). Can't really beat that. Archive it and stream it with Plex or Kodi (which I think is legal, as long as you own a physical copy). Other commenters have noted similar sentiments, but I feel like the subscription services are just the new cable. Until a better option exists, I find physical media to have the friendliest licensing for users.

Avalaxy2• 6 years ago

When I download it, it's blocked by Windows Defender. Does anyone know why?

j0hnml• 6 years ago

What’s the suspected threat name? It should say when a file gets quarantined.

longas• 6 years ago

Windows blocks it because the app is not digitally signed with a Code Signing Certificate ($200+/year). You can still install it if you press in the "Show more" button and then "Run anyway".

mindslight3• 6 years ago

The problem likely isn't the money, but rather it would paint a big red target on their back with a legal entity to sue. And it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft would easily revoke a certificate, even without any legal judgment.

That's the problem with code signing. It's just an attempt to graft the status quo monkeysphere onto the digital realm - you "know" the author of the code, so therefore you trust it completely, because you can sue them post-hoc if they harm you. This doesn't scale to the digital world, but that hasn't stopped these unimaginative power-hungry companies from trying to force us into it.

rafaelvasco2• 6 years ago

If it's not on Netflix or any streaming provider, I have no choice but to pirate it. Plain and simple. Most media content is still outside the main providers.

olah_13• 6 years ago

Pro-tip: You can now digitally rent basically every movie from Youtube or Amazon.

Services like https://www.justwatch.com/ make it easy to not break the law. I used to use Popcorn time all the time, but honestly it kinda feels good to not steal /shrug

sakarisson• 6 years ago

I don't have an ethical problem with illegally pirating content either, but it does grind my gears when people make that kind argument. Nothing is forcing anyone to illegally download Westworld. Digital content isn't essential for your well-being, so I find always find it very odd when people try to justify stealing it.

andybak2• 6 years ago

basically every movie

I find a good 10-20% of things unavailable across Netflix + all non-subscription services.

fernandotakai4• 6 years ago

depends on where you live.

i can't rent any movies on amazon and while youtube offers some movies, they are either subtitled in my native language (which i don't like, i prefer english subtitles) or they are dubbed (which is even worse).

FalconSensei• 6 years ago

Yet you can't rent TV shows, only buy. And to buy a show episode is the same price as to rent a movie, which is 2x longer. Make it possible to rent tv show episodes, and then I would be able to rent them

BTW, I also tried to buy Harlots in Canada, in physical format. It wasn't available in Blu-Ray

criddell• 6 years ago

There are a surprising number of movies that aren't available on any streaming platforms.

https://johnaugust.com/2018/missing-movies

mindslight3• 6 years ago

It feels good to give financial support to regressive companies trying to put the Internet back in the bottle, destroy net neutrality, push us into proprietary platforms, divide online communities based on geographic location, surveil our behavior, etc?

You and I have much different takes on what feels good.

rafaelvasco2• 6 years ago

Will check it out. Thanks!

pachico12• 6 years ago

I'm a huge fan of swing manouche (jazz style developed during the '40s). I can't find albums in legal sources that I can instead find in Nicotine++ (a Linux version of the old Soulseek). What should I do? Accept that I won't find it?

I remember once writing to an Aussie record label asking for a copy of an old album of Brett Garsed. They told me I wouldn't find it here in Europe nor they had the means to send it to me. Should I just accept it? Once again, I could find it in Nicotine++.

I can't find many movies I like in original language in Netflix, HBO and Amazon, all services I have legal accounts for. Again, should I just accept I won't watch them knowing that I might find them in other channels?

I live in Spain, country where I pay a compensation copyright tax for every pen drive, computer, hard drive, TV set, etc, I purchase just in case I download something "illegally".

It turns out I'm lazy/I choose not to spend the required time and I accept not enjoying albums and movies I otherwise would.

Well, let me tell you I applaud Popcorn Time.

severine• 6 years ago

Cancellation of the fee

On March 24, 2011, the National Court annulled the order that regulates the rates applicable to the various devices and supports recorded with the digital canon. The reason is that, because it is a regulation, it needed procedures related to supporting and economic reports that were not carried out.

On July 12, 2011, the Congress of Deputies voted favorably on a non-law proposal that urges the Government to abolish said canon and replace it with another compensation formula for authors and content owners that is more suited to copies and uses actually made.

On December 31, 2011 the canon was definitively repealed by the newly constituted new Congress of Deputies, being replaced by a new payment this time by the State whose procedure is about to be developed.

Source (in spanish): https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_por_copia_privada_(Espa%...

I join the clapping, sorry for the nitpick!

pachico12• 6 years ago

Nothing to feel sorry about! I don't know how I could have missed that but I'm so lucky it ended! Having said this, I still find myself entitled to search for copies of cultural material I like :)

Still, too lazy/don't have the time to do it.

jjulius2• 6 years ago

I'm a huge fan of swing manouche (jazz style developed during the '40s). I can't find albums in legal sources that I can instead find in Nicotine++ (a Linux version of the old Soulseek). What should I do? Accept that I won't find it?

Not sure if you've heard of it or not, but Discogs might be a great place for you to source and purchase a used copy of those albums.

kkarakk3• 6 years ago

I tried using this, 1st of all the music was in CDs by a third party seller - which is not a deal breaker but may be to some others.

However,seller declined to ship me discs(to india) even though i was willing to pay shipping. He said customs tends to seize items like music cds

pachico12• 6 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation, sir! I will check it out!

dylan6045• 6 years ago

I remember once writing to an Aussie record label asking for a copy of an old album of Brett Garsed

I applaud the effort at legitimately trying to get a copy. However, sounds like an opportunity still might exist. Small record labels are always hard pressed for cash. Maybe there's a business deal to be made. I'm sure they would be open to licensing the music to you. You could then release the album yourself, or maybe a compilation album with tracks from other artists in the same style of music. Now you have the opportunity to bring that music to a wider audience based on your interest while maybe making a little money on it as well.

This is HN after all. Maybe there's some new website you can make that allows cash strapped record labels to distribute the music legitimately using some new programming language of the day. You could then write up a Show HN and let us all know. We might even be interested.

gmueckl• 6 years ago

What deals could a small label make with an unknown trader with no reputation that are better than uploading the backlog to Spotify with little effort and hoping for a bit of income? This is assuming that the label has the right to upload the works.

1_player5• 6 years ago

It's called Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music (does it still exist?)

My brother made a song with 10 yearly listens and I can find it on there.

Also Bandcamp is a thing. Very few dinosaurs or really, super niche artists are on neither platform.

pachico12• 6 years ago

This was 20 years ago, my friend. The world wasn't as connected as it is now. I actually struggled to find out the record label!

sbarre5• 6 years ago

I mean, one of the answers to your question is in fact: "accept that you do not get to consume that media".

I'm not advocating for or against what you are choosing to do, but the position of "it's my only choice" is not really accurate. You have no inherent right to that media.

Popcorn Time and other P2P file sharing tools are convenient, but let's not be hypocrites about it, they enable illegal behaviour and allow you to go against the wishes of content creators, denying them both revenue from and control of their creations.

michaelmrose4• 6 years ago

You in fact have no inherent right to control other people's computers.

It's hard to justify why you think that creators have a right to the contents of your hard drive and wallet. I don't remember being party to the social or legal contract that created such rights nor realistically do I have a voice in changing it.

If society says that as a poor person in addition to having less of everything else I ought to enjoy less movies, music, books, games then perhaps society can go to hell.

saagarjha4• 6 years ago

I'm a huge fan of swing manouche (jazz style developed during the '40s).

Keep in mind that many of the content creators are now dead.

crimsonalucard7• 6 years ago

I'm going to be honest with all of you. You all are doing something that is ethically and morally wrong and statements like this are only way too human attempts to justify the actions of things you know are clearly wrong. You can't find legal sources of swing manouche just like you can't find legal sources of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da vinci. What are you going to do? make a counterfeit copy of the Mona Lisa then buy tickets to the art museum to absolve you of all crimes?

That being said I use popcorn time and stremio and torrents regularly. The difference is, I don't justify my crimes. I'm aware of what I'm doing, I don't need to live in a universe that is a self created moral illusion. I likely will do something unethical if I could hide it and it made economic sense. I am human and, morally, I am imperfect, but unlike most of you, morally, I am aware of my imperfections and I don't try to construct logical scaffolding to lie to myself and others. I can pirate because most people pay for the things I pirate, such a model is only sustainable if most people don't do what I do. Things like popcorn time threaten to change the balance.

If you want to save the world or do better for the world, do not assume that the world is as described by our parent poster pachico. It's not intelligent to assume that people are going to use popcorn time then purchase Netflix to offset some of that guilt (still a crime btw). Assume the world is made out of people who are as pachico really is.. people who are morally grey but make up lies and illusions to comfort themselves into thinking they are justified in their crimes.

I stopped pirating games 10 years ago when my salary crossed a threshold where it wasn't worth my time anymore to pirate a game vs. the convenience to buy it from steam. The way to combat piracy is to create systems that appeal to the previous aforementioned logic.

Spotify was a step in the right direction but it eliminated much of the huge profits made by the music industry. Perhaps those profits were ludicrously too large anyway. Either way, the way forward isn't trying to justify your crimes. It's admitting that hey, we are victims of the tragedy of the commons, we use popcorn time because it's free and easy to use... to combat this situation you either need to take steps to destroy this product or come up with something way better.

pachico12• 6 years ago

My specific case was live albums of a band named Waso, which were never printed in CD. The only digital copies were fans that owned original vinil records from the '70s and digitalised them. What do you do in this case? I remember downloading a copy of them and not feeling any kind of remorse about it. Not sure it helps but I was myself a musician and my brother plays too as is his only source of income. I know a bit of the industry.

pachico12• 6 years ago

You seem to be quite sure about the type of person I am and defining me grey is quite insulting but that's beyond what is being discussed here. You seem to have missed what I wrote a out having accounts of Spotify and 3 video streaming services.

I am also tempted to tell you that you might want to revise you usage of the words morally and ethically and that these are probably more profound than to be applied to a kid wanting to buy an album but failed to find it. Having said this, have a good day.

pachico12• 6 years ago

For the sake of argument, I'm contemplating the idea of counterfeiting Mona Lisa, as you say. I can't see anything wrong with it if it's for my own personal pleasure and I'm not hurting anyone.

Don't forget copyright is a human construct and is far from being perfect. Also the amount of years after which art becomes public is human made and totally arbitrary. Why not 2 years? Why not 500 years? Ethics are not in the game here, I'm afraid. I'd like you to reply but please, restrain yourself from insults this time. Thanks

psychlops• 6 years ago

Without disagreeing with what you wrote, you are conflating ethical and moral with legal and criminal. They are not the same and it makes it difficult to understand the foundation upon which you rest.

degski3• 6 years ago

I fully agree with you on all points except: "still a crime btw". 'pirating' on this small scale without a direct financial benefit [money coming towards you] is a violation of the copyright act(s) and you would end up in civil court.

shadowprofile77• 6 years ago

Your argument about the Mona Lisa i absurd. You can indeed make as many copies of her as you like and even sell them or put them on paid display to others (if they'll even pay to see it) and it's not in the least bit illegal, as long as you don't claim they're the original. It doesn't fit this scenario. Secondly, you first accuse a bunch of people here of moral infringements then plainly state that you yourself commit piracy, but that it's somehow better, because you don't "justify" your "crimes". You actually do, by saying it's less morally wrong because you're "aware" of your actions.

Quite a shit mix of contradictions.

degski3• 6 years ago

I live in Spain, country where I pay a compensation copyright tax for every ...

I don't know specifically about Spain, but this 'copyright tax' [that was introduced in most, if not all European countries, probably a directive] was for you to legally be able to create copies on your devices of legally acquired contents.

The interpretation you have been giving it, is mentally satisfying, but not legally tenable

There seems to be contents on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=manouche . I leave it for you as home-work to ddgo the solution from there.

koonsolo• 6 years ago

It still is a ripoff. Nobody says I'm going to use that storage to take copies.

But yeah "I took a backup but lost the original, good thing I took the backup!" ;).

bschne• 6 years ago

OT, but as a fan of Django who doesn't know any other artists of the genre - do you have some recommendations? :D

pachico12• 6 years ago

Really?! Start by this, listen to this radio (there are many more) and once you like an artist, find him in Spotify and look for similar artists. http://www.jazzradio.fr/radio/webradio/10/jazz-manouche

rado• 6 years ago

I've tried many times to purchase/stream films online, cash in hand, only to be denied because of various BS reasons. This is all that needs to be said about the industry and piracy.

fernandotakai4• 6 years ago

sometimes i CAN'T buy/watch films online because they are not available in my country.

so i would have to buy the film in physical form so i can watch it.

globular-toast• 6 years ago

What effect is this going to have on torrent swarms? It seems to me that if everyone downloaded blocks in order it would defeat the purpose of bittorrent and mean the beginning would be seeded much better than the end.

kristerv• 6 years ago

CHANGELOG.md's last entry is

0.3.10 Beta - Popcorn Is Love - 31 October 2016

No info anywhere. Did it actually change?

mpalmer• 6 years ago

Quite a bit: https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/compare/...

No write-up I can find though.

mciancia• 6 years ago

Anyone knows what is the difference between this project and https://getpopcorntime.is ?

pachico12• 6 years ago

I know that at least one of those projects were spyware (not the original but one of its copies). I can't tell now which one was it.

andybak2• 6 years ago

https://twitter.com/popcorntimetv/status/729597989581406208

kapsteur• 6 years ago

The timing is juste perfect

rezeroed• 6 years ago

I wonder to what degree piracy serves as marketing ie someone pirates the film then tells three non-pirates what a good film it was, and they pay for it.

KenanSulayman• 6 years ago

It's rather suspicious that the macOS binaries are distributed as pkg files requiring root permissions...

Edit: the binaries inside seem OK. I assume it's to bypass the Gatekeeper lockdown when a user downloads an app file.

thatsnotmepls• 6 years ago

Popcorn Time or Stremio?

songshuu• 6 years ago

Best news of 2020. Literally.

techntoke• 6 years ago

Torrents are terrible for streaming unless you get invited to a private tracker, and then you end up having to share a bunch too making yourself a bigger target.

sm4rk0• 6 years ago

Why 4.0 in title when it's actually v0.4.0?

https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/releases...

icarito• 6 years ago

I downloaded the 64bit Linux build and it has a strange executable called "payload". I moved it out of precautio and still launched the app, and it seems to work fine without this executable. What is this "payload"? Anyone know? A quick search didn't find anything relevant.

laresistance• 6 years ago

You're not the first one to notice something odd [0]

Added to the fact that you need a boatload of stuff to even build it [1], and you get an interesting cocktail of mass-exploitation.

0: https://old.reddit.com/r/mealtimevideos/comments/dulvpz/subs...

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22614247

This doesn't look good:

https://old.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/flcqsd/trojan_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/fknfnm/is_this...

https://old.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/fluait/the_vpn...

zmaten• 6 years ago

Anyone actually tried this update?

1. It deletes your favorites folder

2. An obnoxious blinking icon in the main page and a label while the stream is being prepared is trying to nudge you into buying a VPN service

3. The option to load subtitles is botched

Here if you want the old(0.3.x) version: https://get.popcorntime.app/repo/build/

aorth• 6 years ago

Wow, you need npm, bower, yarn, and gulp to build and run this thing. Pretty cool, though...

Kaze404• 6 years ago

Or you can just download the appropriate binary for your system.

Popcorn Time 4.0

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