Seriously, unless you are a massive copyright holder, attempting to exploit every red penny out of your brainwashed masses, I don't see how any user would have a problem with this. Maybe the movie industry should try to out-innovate?
2. Do you believe no one in the world besides "massive copyright holders, attempting to exploit every red penny out of your brainwashed masses" dislikes piracy? That's a very simplistic and naive view. I hope you find these discussions illuminating.
It is of course the exact opposite: it is very difficult to innovate when you have guaranteed monopolies, because they are effectively money for nothing, and the easiest way to keep the business going is to focus on manipulating the law and enforcement in your favour instead of working on innovation -- which is indeed exactly what the MPAA/etc. lot have been doing.
What are you going to do? Work hard to create new ways to improve the service, or call a lawyer and have the government shut down your competitor overnight? It is an all too easy choice, and it is one the media industry has been taking year after year.
To put it in terms HN might be more comfortable with - how would you feel, if you operated a subscription website, if someone came along, and swiped your code and content, and put it up for free. Would you support that?
A digital movie, however, can be copied a thousand times in a few seconds for next to no cost, and will be an exact copy.
Well if it was 15-20 years after I created it and it had already paid out for me then I'd feel mighty fine about it.
For me this argument works at the short-term and for the artists but fails to speak at all to why the government of a country should get involved in protecting the assets of those who have already received their living wage many, many times over for something that may well have been created by their great-grandchild's employee 100 years ago.
Edit: case in point http://www.humblebundle.com/ => how much easier can it get?
What is so bad about honestly getting permission to watch things you want to watch?
[edit: added more to the list]
Because the terms are offensive and anti-consumer.
Let us count the ways:
1. Overpriced
2. DRM encumbered
3. Bad UX (by way of 2)
4. Platform lock-in (by way of 2)
5. Geograhphy lock-in (again, by way of 2)
So basically, if I live in Europe, I can pay downright extortionate rates to access content in a format which goes out of its way to make my life difficult, (IF i can access it at all)
Or,
I can key in a random torrent site, search for what I want, it will be available in multiple, DRM-free formats, and I can click a button and have it on my local machine in less than an hour.
Which sounds like a better value proposition to you?
I'd rather cut a check to the artist directly and know that I'm not supporting N middlemen who actively campaign against my interests.
Wouldn't that be akin to cutting a VC out of their percent of the earnings?