Piracy is not a people problem, it is a service problem
“Piracy is not a people problem. It’s a service problem. A problem created by an industry that portrays innovation as a threat to their antique recipe to collect value.”
Popcorn Time, the elegant movie watching application created by a group of Argentinean hackers described by Time magazine as “so good at movie piracy, it’s scary”, is to close, bidding farewell with a lovely, and highly recommended open letter. Its creators say that they want to get back on with their lives, adding that they are facing a very traditional industry and that trying to revolutionize such a huge market comes with costs that nobody should have to pay.” That said, it has been reborn on GitHub.
This is an app offering a streaming viewing system for movies that is better even than Netflix’s, but based on YTS, a torrent archive, and that soared in popularity after being mentioned on some of the best-known blogs and websites in just one week. The app, developed in only a couple of weeks, was simply an open learning and sharing experiment in which “none of the developers made any money” and was free of advertising, premium accounts, subscriptions, or anything else.”
Once again, this experiment has shown that there is an enormous, unfulfilled demand from people who want to watch movies currently on release when and where they want, such as at home with their feet up on the sofa, rather than having to accept the ridiculous conditions imposed by the movie industry. The problems the film sector faces are not caused by us, or by technology, or by hackers; they are the result of its own stupidity. These problems are created by movie execs, with their absurd insistence that “this is the way it is and nobody can change that” and by their bizarrely limited idea that “distribution works like this and if you think you can change it, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Stagnation and obstinacy do not deserve protection. The politicians who supposedly represent us are not duty bound to protect industry hell bent on being unviable and in refusing to adapt to changing realities. Cinema as such is not in danger, and is not about to die out: but the parasites who insist on making a living from a distribution system that belongs to the last century are.
Popcorn Time was a brave and beautiful experiment. Congratulations, Pochoclín :-)
(En español, aquí)
