‘Legal’ movie download options
p2pnet.net News:- Bearing in mind the MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) recent occupation of what used to be the LokiTorrent site, you’d have good reason to believe the holier-than-thow movie industry would be squeaky clean.
And if that’s what you think says P2PForums’ Cory Higgins, think again.
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here’s another timely Legal Movie Download Options, a Joke
By Cory Higgns – P2PForums
”There are websites that provide legal downloads. This is not one of them."
The now defunct Loki Torrents web page proudly displays this message from the Movie Mobsters nowadays.
Websites that offer legal movie downloads eh?
You mean the MPAA has a place I can download higher quality, legal copies of all these flicks I’ve been leeching from sites like Loki over the last few years? No, way! How cool is that? I guess there’s no need for me to remain a social outcast and self declared pirate anymore, then.
Ok, now. Where are these sites?
Gee. You’d think the new web master over at Loki might have included some links. What a n00b. Guess I’ll have to turn to my old friend Google.
Well, I Google it up and to my surprise, find that most of the results are actually scam sites that don’t offer legal downloads at all. In fact it seems like they are charging cold hard cash.
Wow! You’d think they’d be number one on the industry hit lists.
Well after digging a bit I think I’ve found the site they must be talking about, Zion! And actually, it’s a web page ran by the MPAA.
Couldn’t they have just offered me this link on Loki?
Ok. Now for the good stuff, finally getting to pay for what I’ve been stealing!
They offer me Five whole different sites to choose from – Cinema Now, iFilm, Movie Flix, Movie Link, and Starz.
I take a few minutes to see where I can buy movies I’d been planing to get from Loki this weekend.
Wow! No Million Dollar Baby, or Sideways. And I can’t buy the movies. I can only “rent” or stream them in most cases.
And what the hell is up with all these “B” movies?
They offer tons of them, but not that many of the titles I want. And it seems the only way to watch them on my TV is if I have a TV-out card. The formats they offer aren’t something I can make into Video CD’s, or burn to DVD to watch on my DVD player.
Well isn’t this shitty. I guess there really are ”websites that provide legal downloads”.
However, they didn’t mention they suck.
If the MPAA is gonna bust consumers balls for “stealing” their product and forcing J-Low and Ben into the poor house, shouldn’t they at least be offering us what we want for sale?
How, exactly, is it stealing if you can’t buy it?
Show me where I can by my unprotected xvid DVD Screener of Million Dollar Baby. Oh wait. I can’t. It’s not being sold by them.
So how about you put up or shut up.
How can you say I will not buy your product online if you’re not even giving me a chance to?
Get us customers an outlet where we can buy what there’s obviously a demand for. Then, if we still don’t, then think about suing us.
You’re making the same mistakes your wayward cousins over at the RIAA have been making.
You make me sick.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
February 14th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
let me guess.. the “downloans” were in WMV format?
WMV is not a file format, it’s ajoke. Xvid is the only way to go.. i dont buy portable players or commercial divx players because they use official divx rather than the much better open source xvid.
To that note.. the only way to make a good divx player for TV is to use xvid or ffmpg based decoders such as xbox media center (basically beefed up mplayer)
February 14th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Interesting approach. Let’s see what happens when we apply it to music.
Since I can’t buy music in high bitrate, DRM free, OGG that I can make into CDs, I’d better download them from P2P sites.
uh-huh.
Maybe this is an approach to going up against the RIAA as well. A p2p download doesn’t represent a lost sale *BECAUSE THEY WON’T SELL ME THE SAME THING*
ps. Feel free to substitute Mp3 or your other favourite music format for Ogg.
February 14th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
A while back I felt a little guilty about downloading movies, even though most of them weren’t available where I live and my nation’s law states I can download anything I want and watch it (burning them to CD or DVD is however illegal). I decided to come clean and went to one of these “legal” site, fully intending to pay my $4 so as to ease my conscience.
How surprised was I when in the sign-up process, they told me that the service was only available in North America. Amazing! First they are trying to change the copyright laws around the world and then won’t let the rest of the world even pay to watch their stuff.
I went back to downloading anything and everything with a clean conscience, knowing full well that I am a law abiding citizen (well, resident alien) of my country. I mean, you try to do the right thing and they won’t even let you. It just doesn’t make sense.
February 15th, 2005 at 8:46 am
These Guys are really something else (shaking head in disgust).
They pull all of this crap and actually still have the audacity to sit there and act like they’re doing nothing wrong themselves. They continuously insult the general user public’s intelligence by assuming that we are all a bunch of mushrooms that live in the dark…WRONG!
and just who the hell do these idiots think they are anyway! They have absolutely NO RIGHT to tell anyone in any other country how to operate. After all, it’s in their own title MPA of “AMERICA” not the world…and i’m an American. If they don’t like or agree with how a country does business, well, they have the choice to simply stop doing business with them. They’re just a business not a world order or government! All you non-Americans out there should start boycotting and/or picketing outside the theatres to send a clear message that we’ve all had enough of their Strong-arm tactics against a “FREE” internet. Part of the problem is that not enough of the general public is fully aware of what they (MPAA) have been up to lately and how they’ve been going about it.
That would be a start anyway.
Both the MPAA and the RIAA both need to pull their collective heads out of their butts and start realizing that the public doesn’t like being told what to watch and what to listen to, just because some pompous prick thinks that they know what we all want, when clearly they don’t have a clue. I remember when you could go into just about any popular record store and find almost any kind of music…now it’s all “popular” genre crap which most people are just plain getting sick of. and since people can’t find what they want, and/or at “reasonable” prices, that is why so many people are turning to internet file sharing downloads. It’s the MPAA/RIAA that is making the whole thing so attractive to people who might otherwise do it the “right” way. Besides, not everybody that downloads movies and/or music from the internet “illegally”, does so with the intent of never paying for it. Some people just want to sample the thing(s) before spending the outrageous amounts that are now being asked.
I for one, will often download a new movie (especially sci-fi with lots of special effects) from the internet to see if it is just all flash and glam with no substance, or actually a worthy movie…if it is, then yeah, i go out and see it the way it was meant to be seen on the big screen, and they get their dollars because they made a quality movie…they would deserve it then. But if they’re producing crap that’s just putting people to sleep…then screw them, they’re going to be losing money anyway because the movie is just plain ‘no good’. Of course they like to use the easy scapegoat now whenever they produce a total bomb…”oh, it was those damned illegal internet downloaders that caused the movie to fail.” well, in a few cases they’re right! and we’re damned proud of that fact too, because they figure that if they can supress good old “word of mouth” about their crap movie, then they can still fool everyone and make a bunch of money before everyone realizes just how bad it was…well, as stated earlier, the general public isn’t that stupid and an increasing number of people are seeing exactly what they are trying pull. The MPAA needs to realize that they can’t stifle free speech or press, regardless of how the information was obtained…if they’re wrong, then they’re wrong! end of story.
Unfortunately, they have obviously become too arrogant and self-involved to even consider listening anymore…so it’s time for more drastic actions. DEATH TO THE MPAA!!! It’s time a new order was put in their place!…one that actually listens to what the public wants and does it.
February 15th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
They are just out of touch and don’t know how much money they could make if they offered it for sale. Seems they trust consumers as much as they’d trust themselves if they were the consumer; A direct reflection of themselves for sure. They think we’re as untrustworthy as they are. They also don’t learn too well as to how much money they made from movie rentals after they didn’t want that either. Fair price, easy access and ye shall maketh the money.
Look in the mirror Hollywood. RIAA trusts people who CAN be trusted. That’s why Steve Jobs is trusted with their music and not Bill Gates; Steve knows that what goes around, comes around. Bill just takes and sicks his lawyers on the case to figure out how to get out of the problem.
“What goes around, comes around” my friends. There are no free lunches.
Your P2P Brother G.
February 16th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
ok just a thought here .. i agree that this attack everyone attitude by the mpaa is stupid but we are slandering them for protecting their product thtas like the the people stealing direct tv being mad that dave wants its money or if you made a product and was selling it but dsomeone else is reproducing it and selling it and not paying you this is stupid… i enjoy gettin movies and apps and mp3s but lets be reasonable dont get mad cause wqe are getting caught if you think that the reason you download movies is “they charge unfair prices for movies and use unfair practices” you are full oof it you download cause its free and you can just like everyone else. its ok to think that they suck and want to get them back abit but dont hide your crimes behind some blanket of crap come out and say it I LIKE TO STEAL MOVIES and we always find a better way to do it but come on “reasonable copyright” “they dont sell what we are downloading” gimme a break … they do sell it its just part of their marketing stratigy if you cant wait till they sell it your stealing plain and simple.. and anyone who says other wise is playing a game of samantics or just assinine and as for the same format freakin whiners buy the dvd when it comes out and re-encode it if ya want to be legal but for those of you that are happy with breaking the law like me just dont complain when they shut sites down and make the idol threats about comin after you cause it just isnt fealsble for them to come after individuals (only hosters of large arrays of movies) or for us to complain that they want to get paid for their product
February 17th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
I think you need to calm down a bit (and learn to use spell-check)
Sure, we are “stealing movies”. I don’t think anyone denies that. The country I live in has a P2P law which states that I can download anything off the internet I want and it may remain on my hard drive for as much as 24 hours. By law, I then should erase it. The reason I am able to do that is because US copyright laws are exactly that, US laws.
Americans have the idea that US laws are (and should be) mandated throughout the world. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a citizen of a third world country complaining about US imperialism. I am a US citizen who chooses to live outside its borders.
Sure, there are international copyright laws but each individual nation has the right determine whether or not to accept them for their citizens.
The MPAA has every right to enforce these copyright laws where they exist. I don’t think anyone here is arguing that they don’t have that right but they need to realize that the rest of the world doesn’t bow down to them.
And my friend, many of the movies and a large portion of the music found on p2p networks never make it to my area of the world (and I would say that is true for a great number of downloaders). Only a small portion of US film releases ever make it to DVD here and I live in the 5th largest nation in the world. I couldn’t buy them if I wanted to.
I’ve had some people tell me, just order the DVD off the internet. Because of regional coding, even if I purchased a DVD from a website and had it shipped overseas to me (which is frowned on by the MPAA) I still would be unable to watch it because I live in a different region. How ridiculous is that?
You have to also understand the cost of DVDs in other countries when compared with local wages. Using minimum wage as a scale, a DVD in the US costs a little over 2% of a worker’s monthly wage. That same DVD purchased in my country costs over 16% of a worker’s monthly wage in my country. That would be the equivalent of a DVD costing US$156.79 in the US. How many Americans would willingly pay that much for a DVD?
There is no easy solution to this. Many of the popular titles that I download are available just down the street from my house for US$5 each. Of course these are pirated copies. Very few original copies are purchases here and is there any wonder why? Outside of the US, this is very common. In almost every country I’ve traveled to I’ve found this to be true.
It’s similar to the problem with video games. Sony advertises and sells their Playstation 2 consoles here but it is almost impossible to find original titles (I have only seen 4 in the last two years) and they cost about 2 weeks wages. In more populated regions of my country there are more available but the cost is the same.
Sony seems to be content selling their machines here knowing that 99.9% of the people here buy US$3 pirated copies. I’ve never heard of a Sony crackdown here. They seem to be happy just selling their consoles.
Maybe the Japanese are smarter than the MPAA. I know the MPAA doesn’t make money on DVD players but the amount they make on film releases, DVDs, cable and broadcast TV as well as rentals is a pretty good chunk of change.
Instead of trying to change another country’s legal system, they should develop more affordable products that appeal to those consumers.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:03 am
I think your comments are fantastic. This is exactly what I would have said. I am dying to download movies legally and pay for it and I can’t find it. Darn it!!! They are almost forcing us to look for illegal measures. Maybe one day they will smarten up and wake up to smell the coffee!!!
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm