Best place to pirate movies?

[Golgatha]

You might, but most people will not.

The people that might will buy and the people that will not aren't customers. Your argument is invalid.

 

[Printer Bandit]

 

[DrPizza]

Here's an odd thought... if the MPAA set up a site to catch downloaders, aren't the downloads legal, since it's the owners giving them away? I mean, if someone kept breaking into my house and stealing things, if I stood in the middle of a park waving things, and saying, "here, take these!" Wouldn't that be me giving them away, rather than more thefts?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Here's an odd thought... if the MPAA set up a site to catch downloaders, aren't the downloads legal, since it's the owners giving them away? I mean, if someone kept breaking into my house and stealing things, if I stood in the middle of a park waving things, and saying, "here, take these!" Wouldn't that be me giving them away, rather than more thefts?

Isn't that entrapment?

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I've used movshare and watchseries.it (both on the list) to find episodes you can't buy anymore. Mostly old superhero cartoons. Never really got past the first few episodes of any though, they are starting to age.

 

[Exterous]

https://torrentfreak.com/massive-music-piracy-plunge-fails-to-halt-decline-in-sales-130919/

looks like it's not piracy killing sales after all

maybe it's crap media doing it.

They haven't learned from the countless other examples so they won't learn from this one either

When Apple went DRM free for songs, it didn't exactly destroy their bottom line or the music industry. Either that or the movie industry needs to go to an all-you-can-eat streaming buffet like music. Current model is anti-consumer. Makes moving your stuff around a colossal pain.

Not to mention all the annoying as shit previews, coming attractions, FBI, Interpol, French warnings and all the loading times in between

Isn't that entrapment?

I don't believe that matters in civil suits

 

[mikeford]

Didn't we already debunk this with steam and video games? Piracy of games used to be a lot bigger, now most people are happy to wait for a steam sale and buy everything off there. Can't even remember the last game I pirated. Steam saw the market wanted a place to access and buy all of their games and manage them all with one piece of software, steam delivered, now it's the largest gaming platform out there.

Steam is gamer friendly, money clearly is getting to game developers who update old games and create new ones. Compare that to the hostility most other DRM systems face.

Personally I don't like it when I pay $400 for a software tool, and it keeps getting more and more of a PITA to use and I know it will poof if the company ever goes under.

As for movies, BluRay, PITA restrictions, mkv of BluRay, works fine, minutes to locate and down load, essentially free.

Funny though using indexing services in Russia, because we lack those freedoms.

 

[gevorg]

Awesome list OP, I updated my bookmarks!

 

[mikeford]

Rapidgator and uploaded both quickly respond to copyright violation notices, very annoying at times. Pretty much ALL the big places do, so I put it as more like a last gasp for relevancy by the MPAA before something better comes along.

 

[Ichinisan]

...
Not to mention all the annoying as shit previews, coming attractions, FBI, Interpol, French warnings and all the loading times in between
...

I watched Drive on Blu-Ray last night. I loaded the disc and it showed something (I don't remember what), then went to a completely black screen. I think it was over a minute before a tiny selection appeared, asking if I wanted to resume the film or start from the beginning.

There's no good reason why it should have taken so long to show that. If it was loading some elaborate menu system, there should be some kind of spinner or message to indicate that it was busy.

Anyway, the trailers...

I skipped one that my brother wanted to see. I pressed the back-skip button about 3 times. At least one press caused it to show the "operation not available" (prohibited user operation) message. It played a completely different trailer than the one I was trying to go back to.

Production studios abuse user prohibited operations in both DVD and BD formats. You'd think the BD alliance would have mandated strict rules regarding the process of starting a movie and the abuse of UPOPs. If they're going to charge a premium for movies in that format, they had better optimize the user experience.

 

[soulcougher73]

Glad my sites not on the list for shows..

 

[Ichinisan]

My visiting half brother watched Alien and Aliens for the first time and loved it.

He never liked movies. The majority of movies he's seen in his lifetime were second-generation VHS tapes in 4:3 pan-and-scan on a regular size CRT. After showing him some great movies from my collection, it seems that I've ignited his interest. He keeps asking why I buy movies instead of renting and this turned out to be an excellent example of why I do.

After we had watched a lot of movies, he asked how much I spend on this stuff. He reacted with astonishment and disbelief when I told him that many of them were under $7 (Black Friday sales, bargain bins, etc) -- he actually thinks $7 is way too much. I didn't even bother to mention that some of them were full-price. I think the most expensive Blu-Ray I purchased recently was Little Shop of Horrors through Amazon for over $23.

I told him about Prometheus (the prequel to Alien). I tried to manage his expectations ("great visuals, great director, good casting, good acting, ...HORRIBLE script"). I ranted about Damon Lindelof for a while. I'm not sure if he understood, because he was still hyped to watch it. Redbox, Netflix, and Amazon Prime didn't have it. iTunes was purchase-only (no rent). My half brother did a Google search and found it on one of those questionable streaming sites. He tried to convince me to watch it there (I don't think he even understood that it wasn't legitimate). He was trying to convince me not to spend $4 to rent it online. I think he feels like we've spent too much money on him during his visit.

He started playback on that web site. The quality was acceptable for most people, but I think even DVD would look better. There was no way to enable captions. All of us (me, my twin brother, and my half brother) have bad hearing, so we really need captions to enjoy a movie. The only redeeming quality of that movie is the visual imagery, so I told him it wasn't worth watching it on some shady streaming site. I've heard that Vudu has the best quality for online VOD, so I rented it there and found that the iOS app didn't have AirPlay capability (!?). Working-around the issue with AirPlay mirroring looked terrible. I don't know if it had captions or not becuase I didn't let it play far enough to get to the dialogue. I'll have to contact Vudu later to request a refund.

From the sluggish and terrible UI on my TiVo Premiere (the 320GB version with the sloooow CPU), I rented it from Amazon Instant Video on Demand. The Amazon menus are clearly designed for an SD series 2 TiVo. They are awful. After ordering, a vague message said it would start downloading "soon" and I would find it in my "My Shows" list eventually. I don't think you can honestly call that "Instant Video on Demand" when it doesn't even *start* downloading immediately. After waiting a little while and finding nothing, I went through the purchase process about 2 more times (hoping it wouldn't charge repeatedly) and finally got to some screen that seemed to start the download.

Even once we started watching, it probably took 3 times longer to watch than it should have. Apparently, Amazon VOD on TiVo Premiere doesn't support closed captions. We kept having to skip back to understand the words. I'm sure the neighbors hate me for having the volume so loud at 4AM. All 3 viewers (me, my brother, and my half brother) have terrible hearing. I really wish more services understood that some people can't enjoy a movie without captions.

In conclusion: I find that, still, I often can't enjoy a movie if I don't have a physical Blu-Ray disc that I can pull-out and watch with someone. Even though some frustrations persist with Blu-Ray, it's still the only consistently acceptable experience for me.

 

[massmedia]

IIRC Apple Music sales are down 12% this year. Pretty much destroyed their bottom line.

that has nothing to do with DRM free music being sold by Apple.

Streaming services are on the rise and Apple missed the ship on that one.

 

[manimal]

. If they're going to charge a premium for movies in that format, they had better optimize the user experience.

I have been saying this for years. Shit is too hard to get working right way too often. Ive had to replace my BD player 3 times in 5 years because the damn things wouldnt run right after updates and took FOREVER to load. These were Oppos and Samsungs..... Frigging pita.

 

[BUTCH1]

Yeah... if you're downloading stuff from these places, now might be a good time to stop. You're being tracked, and expect a cease and desist letter in the mail soon.

I used "Viooz" once but the site was filled with nasty scripts so I didn't go back, really I would rather wait till it gets to Netflix or go to a Redbox kiosk.

 

[BUTCH1]

that has nothing to do with DRM free music being sold by Apple.

Streaming services are on the rise and Apple missed the ship on that one.

It's easy to strip audio from Youtube with add-on's, sure the quality is usually crappy but it is free.

 

[PokerGuy]

How very nice of them to put together an easy reference of where to find everything

 

[Nebor]

I regularly use Vudu for movie rentals and have no issues. High quality sound and video, and even 3d video. And I only have a 24mbps internet connection.