One Million page views on movies.io | Hacker News Reader

One Million page views on movies.io

fredericjacobs.com

81 pointsFredericJ63 comments

OK, so, it's that post.

Consider the following cases:

1. a company violates a FOSS license by incorporating GPL code and not releasing source code.

2. a company takes an image produced by an artist and sells T-shirts of it without the artist getting compensated.

3. a website/mobile app/elements of branding get replicated (or very closely reproduced) in a new website/app (think Zynga, Chinese/Russian clones of Facebook/Groupon and whatnot).

4. site content gets scraped wholesale, and fed into another AdSense-infested site.

In all these cases, noone lost any money when bits got copied (in fact, sometimes the offending party would produce original work to mimic the product in question), yet doing above things is a no-no, but downloading movies is OK. I don't mean to take a high moral ground here, but it's baffling for me to see the cognitive dissonance.

My impression is that it has to do with the perceived commerciality of the entity doing/facilitating the copying.

Perhaps a more relevant analogy would a hypothetical popular newspaper example: you can buy it at the local store of some countries on the day of release, or if you live in those country where you can access them online for free or included with your TV subscription, you're fine. But if you don't live in said country and the newspaper doesn't distribute to you, or it gets to you some months late and it's old news by then, you might go looking for other access avenues. You'd very much like to get todays news so you can participate in the global discussion.

Have we not already come to the agreement that the problem is not piracy, but the lack of access in our new global arena? None of us here would be so naive as to believe that piracy will end when each of us have access regardless of our geographical location, but at least then we will be able to have a real conversation about it.

The Avengers has been released nearly everywhere in the world, yet it leads in terms of piracy.

It also leads in box office revenue, so I'm not sure that's sufficient to disprove a correlation between piracy and availability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8BeDiHawQ

The interesting thing about black/gray markets is that they crop up when demand isn't otherwise being met. So yeah, the Avengers gets pirated for one of two reasons:

1) It's not available where people want to watch it

2) It's not available for a price they want to pay

It's a fascinating problem, really. I doubt movie studios will ever be able to meet the "free" demand, but piracy in general has put all sorts of pressure on them to get movies into peoples' hands quicker. The Hunger Games was a huge hit and will be on BluRay within about 5 months of its theatrical release. It'll be out on iTunes at the same time.

Historically, this is a vast improvement. Titanic took about 10 months to go from theater to VHS. This was back in the day when places like Blockbuster had exclusive rental windows for a while too, so it was more like a year before non-pirates could purchase it for home use.

If people could reliably pirate high fidelity copies of movies between the theater and DVD releases, I suspect that timing would shrink even further.

Nobody in my household has pirated even one track since the advent of Spotify in our lives. I know it's not the best sample size, and it's only anecdotal, but I suspect that would be the pattern across the board if similar models became adopted for other forms of media.

While technically true, frankly spotify might as well be.

While exact numbers aren't disclosed, I've seen a $0.004 per play royalty thrown around enough that it's probably at least ballpark.

But their payout is based per stream, not per track, isn't it? At amounts that still exceed that of radio?

"For a 99c sale of a track on iTunes an indie artist gets 70c. At the time you need 140 Spotify streams to make the same 70c." (Source: http://www.spotidj.com/spotifyroyalties.htm)

These figures are hardly comparable with piracy, and for an artist with a reasonable audience, should more than exceed the $.918 average royalty for a song per unit sold that record companies provided in the era of CD sales.

Assuming Spotify is available in your country...

Bleh, you can get todays news if you buy your local paper. Why do you think you have a right to access the popular paper?

I would posit a challenge to you: for one month don't consume any media, read any newspapers or magazines except those available to you locally. If you live in NYC, great. If you live in Santiago or Sydney, after just a few days you'll find the global discussion quite weary as you are not privy to references, certain author's critics and reviews will not be available to you, you will start avoiding most discussions that pose a risk of exposing spoilers for your favourite series.. as an native english speaker who travels and does not have access to such things in various cities I find it very difficult not to contemplate piracy just to remain up-to-date with the few media items I care about.

An example: the Daily Show is available on the Comedy Central website, but it doesn't work well in all countries due to the nature of their streaming method (buffering.. buffering..). What level of piracy is it, to open the Daily Show website, be exposed to their ads, then actually watch it from another location? Another amusing point on this is, if you watch it in the U.S. you are presented with ads at the breaks. Watch it in Mexico: no ads.

I think one big difference is right there in the word "company" that comes up in each of those examples (or the equivalent "site"). Companies are inherently profit-motivated, so every one of those examples is something done to make money, and we often draw a moral line at profiting from something.

Just starting from the idea of individuals rather than companies, it's easy to come up with a bunch of competing examples which are just as clear cut:

1. A person loans their copy of a new single-player video game to a friend.

2. A person goes to a gallery opening, which is funded by art sales. They look at the art, but it isn't that interesting to them, so they don't buy anything.

3. A new movie comes out. A person likes the story, but they already read the (public domain) book, so they skip it in the theater. A couple months later, a friend gets the DVD from the library and invites everyone over.

I won't belabor the point any more, I'm sure you get what I'm saying. This isn't to justify piracy necessarily, just to point out there's more going on here than pure cognitive dissonance; yes, there is a clear double standard around intellectual property, but it's because intellectual property is a complex issue to people.

I've been thinking about this issue recently... I've come to a conclusion: I don't support copyright in it's current form (at all, in any situation). I think it should be similar to the patent system - the knowledge/information is shared for free with all the world, but the commercialization of the idea is limited - you shouldn't be able to make money using copyrighted stuff, but private persons should be able to copy it at will. The alternative would be, as with the patent system, to never release your idea to the public, but keep it private instead.

In each of these examples, the credit is obscured. In Cushman's examples, credit is preserved. Perhaps the outrage is really about lying.

+1. Also, I find this comment to be #2 the most ridiculous after "your business idea needs to be your passion":

"One Million page views on movies.io. In a bit more than a week. We gotta be touching something right? But what?"

This sounds so stupid. Well, giving another example, I assure you if you start selling heavy drugs on the street, you will find people willing to buy. You will find a lot of them. That does not mean you are doing something "right".

I think that this:

  We gotta be touching something right?

Is missing a comma:

  We gotta be touching something, right?

I doubt that they were implying that they were touching something correct or moral. The question mark doesn't make sense in such a case. If that's what was being said, then it would be better as:

  We gotta be touching something right, but what?

Yeah, right. Now tell me how I can legally download Pinky&Brain, or "28 days later" from Poland.

I know that from U.S. perspective it's all fine & dandy, with Hulu & Netflix letting you access movies, but most of the world has no reasonable access to a fair share of media.

Secondly, without piracy pushing for easier access, even U.S. wouldn't have legal means of downloading the movies. Hence the positive sentiment. It's sites like Movies.io that are pushing for easier access to the movies on the Internet.

Finally, the copyright establishment doesn't look at what's moral (see their support for SOPA/ACTA), they only look at what's legal. Any reason we shouldn't do the same?

Also, notice that while a sentiment towards sharing "Avengers" is "yay", a sentiment towards sharing indie artists' drm-free creations is "no" (Louis C.K case).

I do tend to disagree with the sentiment on HN regarding some aspects of the "pirating issue".

Common arguments are (as quoted from the text)and my symbolic translation to the HN world:

> "Movie theater incomes are in most cases enough to cover the production costs. Their business remains viable even if people continue downloading their movies"

in HN-speak: "Developer salaries are the highest in the economy, so their careers remain viable if people start copying their code"

> "Isn’t the main goal of content producers that their content is seen ? Well. If you would charge less for a movie I would be glad to pay for it. But prices for buying movies online are just abusively high."

in HN-speak: "The main goal of a developer should be to get the product/code in front of many people. If the price would be lower, I would buy it. Ergo, the price should be lower and if not, im just gonna take it"

> "If I buy a DVD I have the right to do what I want with it"

in HN-speak: "I know the terms and licenses of the code I am using. However, i dont like it, so im just gonna do whatever I want anyways."

My view is that this is just like any other market: If you don't like the product or the way its sold under specific conditions, you always have the freedom of not buying it. No one is forcing you to anything.

Also, before this whole downvoting madness starts, please consider that I'm just trying to voice my opinion and argument for my stance.

I just wanted to point out the fact that we are working on referring to legal offers where these are available (especially in the US).

We completely agree with the don't make me steal manifesto which explains the issue in European countries: http://www.dontmakemesteal.com/en/

I have no problem with people trying to voice their opinions on distribution, price or convenience as your manifesto points out.

I have a problem with the entitlement or even "right" to consume a product or service if you have other opinions on the conditions of such consumption.

I say it again, if you don't like the conditions, don't buy. If you don't like a product in the store because of its price, it's apparence, it's production environment, what you do it to use your buying power and market pressure to force alternatives. If those alternatives do not spring up, that probably means that a sufficient amount of people are fine with the conditions of the product or service for the business to disregard people like you.

"I say it again, if you don't like the conditions, don't buy"

Sure, but there's no (real) competition. They all behave the same. If I could buy movies with no copy protection, it would influence my decision a lot.

"If those alternatives do not spring up, that probably means that a sufficient amount of people are fine with the conditions of the product.."

Maybe. Or maybe people downloading "vents" enough of the frustration people have. Downloading are the alternatives, maybe the only alternatives.

As said, I believe the major reason for there not being real competition is that enough people are fine with the current condition. We cannot assume that every niche can be served.

I'm not doubting people download to "vent", but isn't that independent of the moralic discussion of whether someone should be entitled to download?

Yes, but maybe enough people are fine with the current condition because they can download. If they couldn't, more people would be frustrated with status quo and force something else to appear.

"..but isn't that independent of the moralic discussion.." Well, one could argue that since they refuse to make an alternative, people can resort to the only alternative there is.

They all behave the same? I have one movie in particular, Gamers: Dorkness Rising, that has a section on piracy. It says that they encourage people to share this movie with their friends, burn it, copy it, whatever.

So, there are some companies that do allow for the movies to be shared.

Oh, now here's a fun situation we find ourselves in. The movie company themselves openly encourage people to share the movie. Now people are sharing the movie. Are you going to pay for the movie as well, to encourage them to make more movies so that they can continue their share the movie practice? Hm...

This is exactly what I am thinking. If we expect others to respect our software licenses, why don't we respect others' license on creative content they produce, no matter how outlandishly priced or badly delivered we believe it to be?

What baffles me is the amount of rationalisation. I come from Russia, where piracy is a social norm, and if you pay full official price for entertainment products, you are either a sucker, or a rich person asserting your wealth status (I don't imagine much has changed). But Russians never attribute themselves downloading movies and cracking games to some higher purpose: we just like free stuff, and gaming the system for personal gain is a national pastime.

I don't think it's bad. I grow up in a time where it's normal that all information are free. I already have to pay fee's on electronic devices like printers, hard drives, DVDs etc. so this should be enough.

I'm sorry, but I still don't live in that time. I have to pay to get to academic journals to read that information. I have to pay to watch television live. What sort of world are you living in where information is already all free?

File sharing is normal for people today. I grew up with it and all people in my class exchanged games, music, movies etc. each other. Now I started working and it's nearly the same. I understand your point, of course. Music, Movies etc. are still protected by copyright, but I don't want to pay for a crappy service e.g DVD, which includes copyright violation warnings, previews of other movies and copy protection if I can get a better service for free. But I'll probably purchase the Tom Lowe movie, because he is a cool guy and offer the movie TimeScapes in various formats.

Just because some people copy and think they're stealing doesn't mean that the people who think copying is moral are rationalizing. This assumes the correctness of copyright and dumps the arguments against it as rationalization, without providing any argument in favor of copyright.

Hi i have a bug in my movie. Can you tell me how to watch the last part? My movie doesn't start? (support)

I agree with your other points.

As BluRay continues to be used and is allowed to run custom code, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.

it'll be disturbing, though.

The counterpoint is movies as culture and socially relevant information. Why is it right to deny people access to information acquired and redistributed by their peers? Why should an organization be able to control the flow of information on the Internet to suit their business model? At what point do you draw the line and say "that's too much of our information you're sharing"? Is it when someone describes a plot? Is it when they share what they're looking at with their friend (photo or video)? Is it when that friend shares the stream with a hundred million friends on BitTorrent?

The Internet is a link between all of us, so that your experience can be my experience. It's naive to think you can segregate people into those with and without access to your precious information. Thanks to the Internet, we are all one entity. You can't hide information from yourself.

Avengers made money so piracy is OK in this case? Why don't you want to pay for the movie? Is the price too high? You don't like theaters? Piracy is not a good solution to this problem. Movies cost money to make and a lot of it, production through distribution. Yeah some make a lot money back but many don't make any. Working with movies I know that when you put little money into a project your chances of getting something good out of it are slim.

It's clear there is a problem with the business model and someone needs to start coming up with a better solution, other than piracy. The solution needs one goal ... to make money for those that create the movies.

I think the sentiment he is expressing is that studios complain that piracy is killing their industry. Yet, both piracy and profits are way up. Thus, the argument that "we have to do something about piracy!" and asking for more anti-piracy enforcement, is obviously incorrect.

Note: The goal is NOT to make money for those creating movies. Copyright exists to make sure the public gets more works created. Granting a temporary monopoly on the content produced is only done so that the public ends up better off. Please keep the actual goal in mind.

If works are being produced and being made available, then we're doing just fine. Copyright needs revisiting if we see signs that content production is going down. These days, we're seeing quite the opposite, with more things being produced by even more people.

I'm sorry for being cynical, but getting a million pageviews as a piracy site with a fancy interface is not really spectacular. You're giving away content that is normally sold -- of course people are going to use it.

Not really impressed.

Which sites sell torrent files or magnet URIs?

One of the trends I've noticed more and more over the last few years, is that Design is now a USP in itself.

Take anything that already exists and execute it with better design / user experience and watch it become popular / successful.

That said, it once again highlights that as developers, we shouldn't ignore design or think that just getting the basic functionality working is all that matters. Design in a consumer market is a major influencer, often more so than the functionality itself.

Torrent sites and programs definitely need better UI and UX if they want them to become mainstream.

Right or wrong, this site looks like it exists to facilitate illegal movie sharing -- it's just a matter of time before the takedown notice comes.

It's too bad because it's such a pretty site. It could use a better knowledge base (ranking and relevance are so-so) but it's really pretty good.

Coda.fm does just that for music, and has been online for years.

What library/toolkit are they using for the UI? The source has URLs to "/assets/<hex digits>" which looks very familiar, but I can't tell what they're using. Or is it all custom CSS?

I still prefer the look of TorrentBulter.eu. It's default view is browsing the top movies, and displays them in a much more enjoyable manner. The details page on TB is also more feature filled, including a trailer as well (granted, these can sometimes be wrong).

Movies.io, honestly, doesn't offer anything more, other than being newer. Maybe I missed something.

TorrentButler is especially good for "discovering" movies. Both are good for torrent newbies. I like Movies.io search a lot, but I agree it would best if one of them combined both features into one. Also, both should have their own commenting systems, to make it easier to find the fakes. Movies.io has something called "Verified" now, but not sure how that works. Are they just verifying them manually? That seems like a lot of work.

We are using the Fenopy API to get the verified status of torrents.

We still want to keep a lot of features out of the interface. Power users will still prefer searching manually for their torrents to see information we don't provide (such like codecs).

We want to keep our interface as clean as possible.

To me both Movies.io and torrentbuttler address the "torrent newbie" market, as people who already know how to use torrents, can use TPB or other similar sites just fine.

But right now I'd probably have to recommend both of the sites to newbies, one for searching and one for discovery. But I'm sure you'll have a lot of success just keeping it simple the way it is, too. It may actually be the main reason why it got so popular right now. So don't fix what isn't broken I guess.

But since I think this is more for newbies, you better make sure there are no fakes in those 5 listings, either through a technical solution or by allowing others to make comments on the page, or at least use ratings for the torrent's quality or something (but make sure they understand it's not about the quality of the movie).

You know what would be nice? If they added links to Amazon Streaming and Netflix when available. Some sort of nod towards paying for content.

I think the thing for me that movies.io has that others don't is the top 50. It's a beautifully designed site that gives me access to a whole load of well presented information. I don't even torrent, but I've used movies.io to look for films that I haven't seen that might be worth looking into, and I can see the torrent element almost as secondary to some users.

I hope movies.io succeeds, but not so much as to put it on the MPAA radar for a takedown.

Rest assured, MPAA or alike won't leave them up for long. They should be smart as to where to host, and how to evade.

Still, even if someone shuts them down, the idea of visually and functionally all-web-two-point-whatever torrent sites will live on. I believe, that early success of movies.io will be enough for others to try to follow the lead.

Thank you for this, love movies.io, though how do you add movies to 'watch lists'? I signed up and found I could change a lists name but could never find any way to add movies to this list.

The trailer feature is cool, but in order to close the trailer requires clicking the link again. It'd be cool if we could also press escape or click on the backdrop area to close it.

So, whats the tech stack behind movies.io?

""It's a typical Rails 3 apps, Nokogiri used for scraping, PostgreSQL db (migrated from SQLite originally), jQuery+ui for the aucomplete (lazy, yay!), and that's about it :) ""

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4054755

Hope we will hear when your first user gets their internet disconnected, or has to pay a large fine.

The look & design is great. I'd love it if you'd let me filter on rotten tomatoes ratings, discover movies in certain genres, especially more underground / art house type movies. Most of TOP50 is just cheap hollywood action movies that don't appeal very much.

I still want to know how you do the background images.

Congrats on building a beautiful product too.

It looks like it pulls data from the "backdrops" section on TMDb. See the movies.io page[0] for a movie and its corresponding[1] TMDB page. There's also a TMDb API method to get a list of all the relevant images in XML[2].

[0]: http://movies.io/m/jf [1]: http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/61791 [2]: http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/methods/Movie.getImages

The backdrops are coming from TMDb.

We were asked several times to write a blog post about the technology that's behind it. We are working on it.

Hint: All Ruby on Rails, no NodeJS. Sorry guys

TMDb's TOS states that you can't "Use TMDb APIs in any manner or for any purpose that violates any law or regulation, any right of any person, including but not limited to intellectual property rights, rights of privacy, or rights of personality."

How does this reconcile with your use for a torrent search engine?

We contacted them. They said they didn't had any issue with us using their backdrops and information.

Thanks for the response. It's quite surprising.

Well, I hadn't even heard of TMDB before, and now I do, thanks to movies.io, so they must be doing something good!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com