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Popcorn Time previously just showed open domain films in the screen shots. The new one has pictures Game of Thrones and company. It looks like they have stopped

Popcorn Time previously just showed open domain films in the screen shots. The new one has pictures Game of Thrones and company. It looks like they have stopped pretending this is not for piracy. edit: clarification

espadrine 12y ago
Now, for morality to be on their side, they need to publicly advocate and work on a better way to remunerate the content creators. Of course, they could go rogue and act exclusively out of spite for big media, arguing parasitically that how the content creators make money is none of their business. But I really hope they don't.
- pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
  Why?
  - espadrine 12y ago
    > Why? Why I hope they don't just stay rogue? Because having a self-sustainable, transparent industry that actually tries to protect users benefits everyone in the long-run. Creators would accept such an industry because they could do what they love for money, and users would accept it because they would obtain entertainment while knowing where the money they spend goes, and knowing that the work will go to the public domain after a reasonable amount of time. I know I sound like a fool; no need to tell me.
    - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
      Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant this: "arguing parasitically that how the content creators make money is none of their business" I was just wondering your thought process here. It seems that you think piracy is a bad thing, when I see it as a good thing. Who cares about the industry? We have more and higher quality music, software, movies, and TV than ever because of piracy. And for free! Shouldn't that be celebrated? We can now focus on spending our money on more pressing things like food, shelter and health care. Sure, some people can't make money off of direct sales of copies but markets change. We can adapt. Just look at Chance the Rapper, he gave both albums out for free (never charged a dime) and he's rolling in dough because of features and concerts. Also I'm pretty sure he's not at the mercy of a record company, either.
- RobAley 12y ago
  "Morality" is self-defined. No doubt they have their interpretation of morality on their side.
  - espadrine 12y ago
    Sure, but many share a similar definition of morality. More to the point, the economics are not relative to a point of view. Their project can only succeed, as it stands, if it is used marginally. If everyone used it instead of the competition, content creators would have to change the way they work drastically, and no new content would show up on PT.
    - mehrdada 12y ago
      > no new content would show up on PT This does not logically follow from your argument.
      - ewzimm 12y ago
        We would have to look at similar areas where creators are not paid. For example, most YouTube videos are created with unpaid labor. This does not seem to affect their quantity. Quality varies, but payment does not seem to be the defining factor of quality videos.
    - RobAley 12y ago
      There are many more economic models than pay-at-the-point-of-use, so its not clear at all that the project would fail.
      - sp332 12y ago
        espadrine did say "work on a better way to remunerate the content creators."
        RobAley 12y ago
        He implied that was the job of the popcorn time team, it's unlikely that they could or would be able to implement or influence renumeration (beyond the influence of producing the popcorn time platform). It's also not clear that all content creators would need to be renumerated, certainly not to the level that some are today, and it's not clear that a delivery platform has or should have a direct role in the chain of consumer->artist payments. It's a "brave new world" out there, traditional models are changing and no one really knows what the new models will look like.
- VikingCoder 12y ago
  > work on a better way to remunerate the content creators. No one gets rewarded for this. The content creators have the exclusive right to establish their pricing terms. Other entities can make offers, of course, but copyright law gives them the exclusive right to establish pricing and distribution. And they don't want to talk about it. They don't think they have a problem.
  - DennisP 12y ago
    Yes, but you can provide an alternative for new content creators who yet aren't entrenched in the old system.
  - ClashTheBunny 12y ago
    Let's say I live in an Eastern European kleptocracy. Let's say it's fairly impossible to purchase things legally. What about showing them that I'm actually worth it. If people set up a way to actually donate to the content creators anonymously, we could prove that we aren't actually kleptomaniacs and show what a donation system would actually reap for them. They won't sell it to me legally after all.
- rwallace 12y ago
  Or they could correctly argue that the existence of big media is a massive net negative for the welfare of humanity, and anything that diverts money away from the industry is good for the world. Not that piracy seems to put much of a dent in the revenues of Hollywood, unfortunately, but if it did, that would be more than adequate moral justification for supporting Popcorn Time.
  - grabeh 12y ago
    Could you elaborate on how big media is a 'massive net negative for the welfare of humanity'?
    - andreis1 12y ago
      I, too, live under a rock and would like some more info on that.
    - rwallace 12y ago
      Two reasons. First, the destructive effects of having the media cartels lobbying for restriction of freedom in the name of protection of 'intellectual property'; those are sufficiently well known that I probably don't have to elaborate on them here. Second, modern media are junk food for the mind, exploits for security vulnerabilities in our motivation systems. It's not easy to pick up on this, because e.g. watching a movie seems to make you happier for the couple of hours while you're watching it; what you don't notice is that it rewires your brain so that the entire rest of your life is that little bit less happy. Studies have shown that, taking both prevalence and magnitude of the effect into account, watching television is the single strongest determining factor in quality of life, with the effect being monotonic: the less television you watch, the happier you are. At least one study corrected for confounding influences by comparing otherwise similar neighborhoods in Third World cities where television had become available versus where it had not, and the effect was striking: where television goes, quality of life takes a nosedive. For discussion of these and related phenomena, see http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html and http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/ http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an...
- Cakez0r 12y ago
  Perhaps they are choosing not to concern themselves with morality.
edoloughlin 12y ago
Popcorn Time doesn't pirate movies, people pirate movies.
- jws 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_liability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_liability
  - edoloughlin 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody
mzs 12y ago
The original one did as well initially, then quickly the films in the images changed to what you saw.

espadrine 12y ago

Now, for morality to be on their side, they need to publicly advocate and work on a better way to remunerate the content creators. Of course, they could go rogue and act exclusively out of spite for big media, arguing parasitically that how the content creators make money is none of their business. But I really hope they don't.

pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
Why?
- espadrine 12y ago
  > Why? Why I hope they don't just stay rogue? Because having a self-sustainable, transparent industry that actually tries to protect users benefits everyone in the long-run. Creators would accept such an industry because they could do what they love for money, and users would accept it because they would obtain entertainment while knowing where the money they spend goes, and knowing that the work will go to the public domain after a reasonable amount of time. I know I sound like a fool; no need to tell me.
  - pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
    Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant this: "arguing parasitically that how the content creators make money is none of their business" I was just wondering your thought process here. It seems that you think piracy is a bad thing, when I see it as a good thing. Who cares about the industry? We have more and higher quality music, software, movies, and TV than ever because of piracy. And for free! Shouldn't that be celebrated? We can now focus on spending our money on more pressing things like food, shelter and health care. Sure, some people can't make money off of direct sales of copies but markets change. We can adapt. Just look at Chance the Rapper, he gave both albums out for free (never charged a dime) and he's rolling in dough because of features and concerts. Also I'm pretty sure he's not at the mercy of a record company, either.
RobAley 12y ago
"Morality" is self-defined. No doubt they have their interpretation of morality on their side.
- espadrine 12y ago
  Sure, but many share a similar definition of morality. More to the point, the economics are not relative to a point of view. Their project can only succeed, as it stands, if it is used marginally. If everyone used it instead of the competition, content creators would have to change the way they work drastically, and no new content would show up on PT.
  - mehrdada 12y ago
    > no new content would show up on PT This does not logically follow from your argument.
    - ewzimm 12y ago
      We would have to look at similar areas where creators are not paid. For example, most YouTube videos are created with unpaid labor. This does not seem to affect their quantity. Quality varies, but payment does not seem to be the defining factor of quality videos.
  - RobAley 12y ago
    There are many more economic models than pay-at-the-point-of-use, so its not clear at all that the project would fail.
    - sp332 12y ago
      espadrine did say "work on a better way to remunerate the content creators."
      - RobAley 12y ago
        He implied that was the job of the popcorn time team, it's unlikely that they could or would be able to implement or influence renumeration (beyond the influence of producing the popcorn time platform). It's also not clear that all content creators would need to be renumerated, certainly not to the level that some are today, and it's not clear that a delivery platform has or should have a direct role in the chain of consumer->artist payments. It's a "brave new world" out there, traditional models are changing and no one really knows what the new models will look like.
VikingCoder 12y ago
> work on a better way to remunerate the content creators. No one gets rewarded for this. The content creators have the exclusive right to establish their pricing terms. Other entities can make offers, of course, but copyright law gives them the exclusive right to establish pricing and distribution. And they don't want to talk about it. They don't think they have a problem.
- DennisP 12y ago
  Yes, but you can provide an alternative for new content creators who yet aren't entrenched in the old system.
- ClashTheBunny 12y ago
  Let's say I live in an Eastern European kleptocracy. Let's say it's fairly impossible to purchase things legally. What about showing them that I'm actually worth it. If people set up a way to actually donate to the content creators anonymously, we could prove that we aren't actually kleptomaniacs and show what a donation system would actually reap for them. They won't sell it to me legally after all.
rwallace 12y ago
Or they could correctly argue that the existence of big media is a massive net negative for the welfare of humanity, and anything that diverts money away from the industry is good for the world. Not that piracy seems to put much of a dent in the revenues of Hollywood, unfortunately, but if it did, that would be more than adequate moral justification for supporting Popcorn Time.
- grabeh 12y ago
  Could you elaborate on how big media is a 'massive net negative for the welfare of humanity'?
  - andreis1 12y ago
    I, too, live under a rock and would like some more info on that.
  - rwallace 12y ago
    Two reasons. First, the destructive effects of having the media cartels lobbying for restriction of freedom in the name of protection of 'intellectual property'; those are sufficiently well known that I probably don't have to elaborate on them here. Second, modern media are junk food for the mind, exploits for security vulnerabilities in our motivation systems. It's not easy to pick up on this, because e.g. watching a movie seems to make you happier for the couple of hours while you're watching it; what you don't notice is that it rewires your brain so that the entire rest of your life is that little bit less happy. Studies have shown that, taking both prevalence and magnitude of the effect into account, watching television is the single strongest determining factor in quality of life, with the effect being monotonic: the less television you watch, the happier you are. At least one study corrected for confounding influences by comparing otherwise similar neighborhoods in Third World cities where television had become available versus where it had not, and the effect was striking: where television goes, quality of life takes a nosedive. For discussion of these and related phenomena, see http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html and http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/ http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an...
Cakez0r 12y ago
Perhaps they are choosing not to concern themselves with morality.

edoloughlin 12y ago

Popcorn Time doesn't pirate movies, people pirate movies.

jws 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_liability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_liability
- edoloughlin 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody

mzs 12y ago

The original one did as well initially, then quickly the films in the images changed to what you saw.