5 ms·

PopcornTi.me is down

7 points by iamsalman 13y ago

First the installers got pulled off and now the landing page is giving 502.

api 13y ago
Good. This isn't just a file sharing app... it's an app designed explicitly to make piracy convenient. That's its only real purpose. This is why people are throwing rocks at Google buses: the idea that computer technology is working to create a world where only programmers can get paid. I used to be on this "information wants to be free" bandwagon, but then I met some actual artists. Lots of things "want" to happen. Nuclear power plants "want" to melt down, dams "want" to break, influenza "wants" to spread, etc. That doesn't mean it's always in our best interest to allow the default second law of thermodynamics thing to occur. There must be some mechanism in our economy for artists and the people who support them to get paid, otherwise you can kiss anything but the most trite (read: cheap to produce) pop music and plotless explosion-fest movies goodbye. That's because that stuff appeals to people who are either too young or too dumb to know how to pirate. If people can't get paid to pursue their dreams, they have to shelve their dreams in order to get paid. Then you have one less author, one less musician, one less movie being made.
- kaonashi 13y ago
  It's designed to make watching movies easy, as the current solutions are all subpar. But piracy isn't the goal, it's just the only existing method to make the functionality work.
  - untog 13y ago
    You didn't really refute any point he made, though. Whether or not piracy is the goal, piracy is the outcome.
    - higherpurpose 13y ago
      So then we should ban the torrent protocol, too? Out of curiosity, do you support banning all guns, too? Because clearly people are dying because of them.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - untog 13y ago
        I just downloaded PopcornTime. Take a look at the view I get when loading for the first time: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbp576ynkmnlnlj/Screenshot%202014-03-12%2015.59.54.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbp576ynkmnlnlj/Screenshot%202014-... There is a world of difference between the torrent protocol and this.
  - api 13y ago
    If there were any easy way to unlock and start any car, it would sure be easier to just grab one off the lot than to go through the annoyingly slow lines at car rental agencies.
    - harlanlewis 13y ago
      Your sarcastic reply is actually the world today, and it's terrific. I can use my phone to unlock a large number of cars within a few blocks of me and drive wherever I want.
      - FireBeyond 13y ago
        What you’re talking about and music distribution have in common is this: the provider gets paid. Terrific services often have costs, and/or require someone to be compensated for their efforts. Unless, of course, Zipcar et al now have free accounts, right?
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    There are current solutions that are just as good at letting you "watch movies." What you actually find to be "subpar" is the timeline for current movies to become available on those other solutions. So this has little to do with a lack of good tech and mostly to do with people not wishing to be held to the content owners desired timeline. EDIT: switched words (nothing/little and only/mostly) to avoid absolutes.
- quangv 13y ago
  i didn't understand, so you are pro or anti popcorn time?
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "[O]therwise you can kiss anything but the most trite (read: cheap to produce) pop music and plotless explosion-fest movies goodbye." I'm not sure pop music is cheap to produce (compare the tech work and marketing and all involved in a band playing at your local venue with that at a ... um... Taylor Swift? is she still a pop star? concert), and "plotless explosion-fest movies" tend to be the most expensive movies - "2012" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" each cost 13 times as much as "The King's Speech". "If people can't get paid to pursue their dreams, they have to shelve their dreams in order to get paid. Then you have one less author, one less musician, one less movie being made." Most authors and musicians already do something else in order to get paid. 'Nuclear power plants "want" to melt down, dams "want" to break, influenza "wants" to spread, etc.' When those things happen, hundreds or thousands or millions of people are harmed. When information spreads, hundreds or thousands or millions of people are enriched. We should find another way of rewarding artists than fighting an uphill battle to constrain value.
  - api 13y ago
    "We should find another way of rewarding artists than fighting an uphill battle to constrain value." Trust me: if such a thing were found, every single artist would be all ears. Solve this problem and you're the next Zuckerberg. Non-solutions include artists having to rely on charity, "they'll just make money touring," tip jars, DRM, and micro payments (unless they can be made incredibly seamless and low-friction). But making an app specifically designed and targeted so as to impoverish artists is a dick move.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      'I'm working on it.Trust me: if such a thing were found, every single artist would be all ears. Solve this problem and you're the next Zuckerberg. 'Non-solutions include artists having to rely on charity, "they'll just make money touring," tip jars, DRM, and micro payments (unless they can be made incredibly seamless and low-friction)." I'm working on it. "But making an app specifically designed and targeted so as to impoverish artists is a dick move." We have a commons for a reason. If I read "A Tale Of Two Cities" instead of "Twilight", I'm impoverishing artists - and artists can fucking suck it up.
- mwally 13y ago
  Copyright is an obsolete concept that is no longer beneficial to society, and needs to be abolished entirely. I expect this to happen in my lifetime, and people will look back on these days as a dark-ages where information was controlled and entertainment was not on a donation-only basis. Copyright is like debt-collectors, the system only continues to operate because people keep paying. The sooner we all stop paying for content, the quicker the system will go away.
  - tzs 13y ago
    > The sooner we all stop paying for content, the quicker the system will go away How do you suggest content creation be funded? Or do you think content should only be created by hobbyists for fun?
  - api 13y ago
    "entertainment was not on a donation-only basis." So you're willing to do your work on a donation-only basis then? Have fun paying the rent, raising kids, getting health care, and saving for retirement.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      "So you're willing to do your work on a donation-only basis then?" I don't see why anyone wouldn't be, provided the donations were sufficient. Of course, that is unfortunately unlikely to be the case with the current setup for a number of reasons.
      - api 13y ago
        That's what I meant. I've done open source work on a donation-only basis before. I ended up with stuff that was used by tens of thousands of people and ended up earning the cost of a pizza and a six pack. You can't make a living in sub-Saharan Africa off that kind of economics. There have been artists that have made money off donations before -- Trent Reznor and Radiohead come to mind -- but these are huge artists. If they release something on a donation basis and 0.00001% of people donate, they do pretty well. Only a tiny fraction of the top 1% of artists can do this.
- ptaffs 13y ago
  Piracy and stealing creative work is bad. But please, the Publishing houses, Recording and Motion Picture Industries are hardly saints, and often take advantage of the authors, musicians and film makers. An author gets his book published at the convenience of the publisher to fit retail schedules (and waits for royalties on that schedule), successful books, especially technical books and how-tos are re-written by contract authors. Musicians get terrible royalties, often once they’ve paid back the Studio's loan for studio time and costs. Movie extras, writers and staff often complain about treatment, and movies are released to a schedule consumers find inconvenient to fit old models, I’m thinking of HBO, cinema release dates and the DVD region codes. Much piracy stopped when people were able to buy the music on MP3 format, after years of failed DRM. Prince, George Michael, the drummer from Culture Club, unknown members of The Smiths, and I don’t know who else, but even established international artists struggle to deal with the faults of their own Industry. Actors complain they are not receiving DVD sell-thru royalties, or on-line streaming because their contract specified something different. The whole lot is a mess of creative work being stolen, but not only by pirates.
  - api 13y ago
    "But please, the Publishing houses, Recording and Motion Picture Industries are hardly saints," True. But recording industries and publishing houses screw over artists and pay them shite, while piracy pays them nothing at all. This is not a step in the right direction.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- thewordis 13y ago
  I propose musicians and artists become salaried positions. They get an office, instrument, materials, and a manager, jam rooms and display rooms instead of conference rooms, etc.
shravan 13y ago
Their actual URL is http://getpopcornti.me/ http://getpopcornti.me/, which still appears to be up and running.
jdmiller82 13y ago
Pretty sure the URL is http://getpopcornti.me http://getpopcornti.me which is functioning just fine
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Adding a dead link to a three-word sentence does not qualify it as "news"--not even if the sentence is true, which it isn't. I really wish I could downvote newsposts right now.

7 points by iamsalman 13y ago

First the installers got pulled off and now the landing page is giving 502.

api 13y ago

Good. This isn't just a file sharing app... it's an app designed explicitly to make piracy convenient. That's its only real purpose. This is why people are throwing rocks at Google buses: the idea that computer technology is working to create a world where only programmers can get paid. I used to be on this "information wants to be free" bandwagon, but then I met some actual artists. Lots of things "want" to happen. Nuclear power plants "want" to melt down, dams "want" to break, influenza "wants" to spread, etc. That doesn't mean it's always in our best interest to allow the default second law of thermodynamics thing to occur. There must be some mechanism in our economy for artists and the people who support them to get paid, otherwise you can kiss anything but the most trite (read: cheap to produce) pop music and plotless explosion-fest movies goodbye. That's because that stuff appeals to people who are either too young or too dumb to know how to pirate. If people can't get paid to pursue their dreams, they have to shelve their dreams in order to get paid. Then you have one less author, one less musician, one less movie being made.

kaonashi 13y ago
It's designed to make watching movies easy, as the current solutions are all subpar. But piracy isn't the goal, it's just the only existing method to make the functionality work.
- untog 13y ago
  You didn't really refute any point he made, though. Whether or not piracy is the goal, piracy is the outcome.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    So then we should ban the torrent protocol, too? Out of curiosity, do you support banning all guns, too? Because clearly people are dying because of them.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - untog 13y ago
      I just downloaded PopcornTime. Take a look at the view I get when loading for the first time: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbp576ynkmnlnlj/Screenshot%202014-03-12%2015.59.54.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbp576ynkmnlnlj/Screenshot%202014-... There is a world of difference between the torrent protocol and this.
- api 13y ago
  If there were any easy way to unlock and start any car, it would sure be easier to just grab one off the lot than to go through the annoyingly slow lines at car rental agencies.
  - harlanlewis 13y ago
    Your sarcastic reply is actually the world today, and it's terrific. I can use my phone to unlock a large number of cars within a few blocks of me and drive wherever I want.
    - FireBeyond 13y ago
      What you’re talking about and music distribution have in common is this: the provider gets paid. Terrific services often have costs, and/or require someone to be compensated for their efforts. Unless, of course, Zipcar et al now have free accounts, right?
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  There are current solutions that are just as good at letting you "watch movies." What you actually find to be "subpar" is the timeline for current movies to become available on those other solutions. So this has little to do with a lack of good tech and mostly to do with people not wishing to be held to the content owners desired timeline. EDIT: switched words (nothing/little and only/mostly) to avoid absolutes.
quangv 13y ago
i didn't understand, so you are pro or anti popcorn time?
dllthomas 13y ago
"[O]therwise you can kiss anything but the most trite (read: cheap to produce) pop music and plotless explosion-fest movies goodbye." I'm not sure pop music is cheap to produce (compare the tech work and marketing and all involved in a band playing at your local venue with that at a ... um... Taylor Swift? is she still a pop star? concert), and "plotless explosion-fest movies" tend to be the most expensive movies - "2012" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" each cost 13 times as much as "The King's Speech". "If people can't get paid to pursue their dreams, they have to shelve their dreams in order to get paid. Then you have one less author, one less musician, one less movie being made." Most authors and musicians already do something else in order to get paid. 'Nuclear power plants "want" to melt down, dams "want" to break, influenza "wants" to spread, etc.' When those things happen, hundreds or thousands or millions of people are harmed. When information spreads, hundreds or thousands or millions of people are enriched. We should find another way of rewarding artists than fighting an uphill battle to constrain value.
- api 13y ago
  "We should find another way of rewarding artists than fighting an uphill battle to constrain value." Trust me: if such a thing were found, every single artist would be all ears. Solve this problem and you're the next Zuckerberg. Non-solutions include artists having to rely on charity, "they'll just make money touring," tip jars, DRM, and micro payments (unless they can be made incredibly seamless and low-friction). But making an app specifically designed and targeted so as to impoverish artists is a dick move.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    'I'm working on it.Trust me: if such a thing were found, every single artist would be all ears. Solve this problem and you're the next Zuckerberg. 'Non-solutions include artists having to rely on charity, "they'll just make money touring," tip jars, DRM, and micro payments (unless they can be made incredibly seamless and low-friction)." I'm working on it. "But making an app specifically designed and targeted so as to impoverish artists is a dick move." We have a commons for a reason. If I read "A Tale Of Two Cities" instead of "Twilight", I'm impoverishing artists - and artists can fucking suck it up.
mwally 13y ago
Copyright is an obsolete concept that is no longer beneficial to society, and needs to be abolished entirely. I expect this to happen in my lifetime, and people will look back on these days as a dark-ages where information was controlled and entertainment was not on a donation-only basis. Copyright is like debt-collectors, the system only continues to operate because people keep paying. The sooner we all stop paying for content, the quicker the system will go away.
- tzs 13y ago
  > The sooner we all stop paying for content, the quicker the system will go away How do you suggest content creation be funded? Or do you think content should only be created by hobbyists for fun?
- api 13y ago
  "entertainment was not on a donation-only basis." So you're willing to do your work on a donation-only basis then? Have fun paying the rent, raising kids, getting health care, and saving for retirement.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "So you're willing to do your work on a donation-only basis then?" I don't see why anyone wouldn't be, provided the donations were sufficient. Of course, that is unfortunately unlikely to be the case with the current setup for a number of reasons.
    - api 13y ago
      That's what I meant. I've done open source work on a donation-only basis before. I ended up with stuff that was used by tens of thousands of people and ended up earning the cost of a pizza and a six pack. You can't make a living in sub-Saharan Africa off that kind of economics. There have been artists that have made money off donations before -- Trent Reznor and Radiohead come to mind -- but these are huge artists. If they release something on a donation basis and 0.00001% of people donate, they do pretty well. Only a tiny fraction of the top 1% of artists can do this.
ptaffs 13y ago
Piracy and stealing creative work is bad. But please, the Publishing houses, Recording and Motion Picture Industries are hardly saints, and often take advantage of the authors, musicians and film makers. An author gets his book published at the convenience of the publisher to fit retail schedules (and waits for royalties on that schedule), successful books, especially technical books and how-tos are re-written by contract authors. Musicians get terrible royalties, often once they’ve paid back the Studio's loan for studio time and costs. Movie extras, writers and staff often complain about treatment, and movies are released to a schedule consumers find inconvenient to fit old models, I’m thinking of HBO, cinema release dates and the DVD region codes. Much piracy stopped when people were able to buy the music on MP3 format, after years of failed DRM. Prince, George Michael, the drummer from Culture Club, unknown members of The Smiths, and I don’t know who else, but even established international artists struggle to deal with the faults of their own Industry. Actors complain they are not receiving DVD sell-thru royalties, or on-line streaming because their contract specified something different. The whole lot is a mess of creative work being stolen, but not only by pirates.
- api 13y ago
  "But please, the Publishing houses, Recording and Motion Picture Industries are hardly saints," True. But recording industries and publishing houses screw over artists and pay them shite, while piracy pays them nothing at all. This is not a step in the right direction.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
thewordis 13y ago
I propose musicians and artists become salaried positions. They get an office, instrument, materials, and a manager, jam rooms and display rooms instead of conference rooms, etc.

shravan 13y ago

Their actual URL is http://getpopcornti.me/ http://getpopcornti.me/, which still appears to be up and running.

jdmiller82 13y ago

Pretty sure the URL is http://getpopcornti.me http://getpopcornti.me which is functioning just fine

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

Adding a dead link to a three-word sentence does not qualify it as "news"--not even if the sentence is true, which it isn't. I really wish I could downvote newsposts right now.