
The Windows App Store Is Full of Pirate Streaming Apps - drops
https://torrentfreak.com/the-windows-app-store-is-full-of-pirate-streaming-apps-170820/
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michaelbuckbee
An interesting aspect of this is "How can you tell if a streaming site/app is
legitimate?"

There are so many weird, on demand, maybe you need a cable package, maybe it's
just all you can eat, maybe it's just a 2 month free promo, services out there
that it's really hard for the average person to know what is legitimate.

The shrinking release windows and ongoing push for day and date digital
releases just makes it even harder.

Case in point: TubiTV just randomly showed up on my Roku recently - It's
available on XBox and streams a bunch of different stuff. Should/do I need to
verify that they've correctly licensed their movies before watching?

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jstanley
> do I need to verify that they've correctly licensed their movies before
> watching?

I don't think that's your responsibility. If it is brought to your attention
that the app is infringing copyright, maybe it's your responsibility to stop
using it.

But it's not your responsibility to verify that every service you use has the
rights to all the content it uses. How could you possibly do that?

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syshum
Copyright law would likely disagree, I believe the MPAA would also likely
disagree and put to responsibility on the person consuming the content to only
consume content from "Authorized" sources, and of course they have no
responsibility to report who the authorized sources are.

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bo1024
I'm sure the MPAA would like to disagree, but what is your source on copyright
law?

Copyright law prohibits those who have copy of something from making and
distributing unauthorized copies. But if you receive one of these copies, I
don't see what law that would break or why the receiver would be responsible.

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syshum
So then if were to download a copy of a movie off bittorrent or some other
place and I prevent uploading then you would say I am not in violation of
Copyright law. You believe it is UPLOADING, not the DOWNLOADING that is
illegal

Interesting position, Most of the lawsuits however have sued over DOWNLOADING
and uploading, not just uploading or "distributing" infact in some cases it
has been shown the copyright owners themselves were distributing the content
to catch people "illegally downloading" the content.

That would also mean downloading from Usenet would be completely legal...

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zeta0134
I would like to see some cases quoted here. It's been my long time
understanding that bittorrent services come under fire precisely because of
their distribution model. Catching users in the act of _uploading_ copyrighted
content is the signal to press charges. I was under the impression that even
the honeypot torrents were seeking actively sharing IPs for this reason, and
would ignore users with uploads disabled because they wouldn't have as strong
of a court case. Maybe I'm wrong! I have not actually studied the cases.

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finchisko
Microsoft's success is closely related to piracy. Piracy helped Windows to
become the majority. This is no different and IMO Microsoft intentionally
don't fight against those apps very strongly to help their store to succeed.

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simonh
Why do you think that? Was piracy not possible on other platforms? How did it
give Windows a competitive edge?

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erwinkle
Well for starters, you could pirate any version of windows for free and load
it up on practically any hardware. Can't say the same about mac os unless you
want to take the painful route of making a hackintosh

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Karunamon
And they made a number of legitimate attempts to clamp down on that. First
with CD keys, then with online activation, then Windows Genuine Advantage. Of
course, they didn't succeed, because the phrase "successful DRM" is an
oxymoron.

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wongarsu
Their attempt to clamp down on that only really started with Windows XP, when
they already had a near-monopoly. Earlier version technically had a CD Key,
but I don't think those actually did anything as long as you passed the key
along together with the CD.

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hungerstrike
Every app store is full of crap. App stores are a centralized service, so
there is no way to avoid crap ending up in them because there's nowhere else
for the crap to go!

Besides there are actually very few apps that are regularly useful to me on my
limited-OS (non-desktop) devices and those are: Camera/Photos, SMS/Messaging,
Web Browser, Phone Dialer, Contacts, Google Maps, Calculator, Email, KeePass
and Clock/Calendar.

Beyond that, every other app under the sun could disappear and I wouldn't miss
them.

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swiley
I don't even use the maps apps. I never understood how they improve over
maps.google.com. I guess there's turn by turn navigation but it _never_ reads
ahead and so it's really safer to memorize the route than to rely on that.

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williamscales
On Android at least, the Google maps app lets you download large map areas for
offline use, including turn by turn directions. I use this for when I head up
into the mountains to explore a new area where the cell service is spotty and
it's really convenient. It's a nice complement to a topo map and it means you
don't have to carry a separate GPS receiver.

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klondike_
This is a problem with any app store to some extent, even Apple's.

The difference here is that Microsoft seems to be encouraging low quality apps
to boost its "app count" numbers to make its store seem more attractive. Also,
many legitimate services do not have an app for Windows so users get tricked
into installing fake apps or end up resorting to privacy.

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bluedino
Safari or Chrome could be a 'pirate streaming app', right? Would app stores
allow a web browser with pirate sites bookmarked by default?

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MichaelGG
The apps on the Windows store are not even remotely plausibly useful for
anything else. Not only that but they are intentionally misleading. Netflix
had to deal with Microsoft at least three times in order to get Microsoft
remove fake Netflix apps. Many of these apps don't even have a valid website
link or contact info. Some are just a video player wrapped around an HTTP
server that has 10 or 20 video files.

Microsoft has zero quality controls and their store is full of shit, which is
one of the reasons their platform failed so hard. They were literally paying
people per app published regardless of the content of it. It turns out just
advertising that you have a billion apps doesn't help if they're all just
junk.

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cptskippy
Do you think Apple's store for MacOS failed for the same reasons?

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tuxracer
The macOS app store didn't gain much traction but you're underestimating just
how much of a cease pool the Windows app store is. Microsoft must have the
resources to moderate that better. But based on my last test search of
"Firefox" coming up with dozens of fake Firefox apps or "apps" that are
"Firefox Guides" basically PDFs wrapped as an "app" etc... My only guess is
Microsoft knows there's a truly abysmal number of legit apps so they just
choose not to moderate it

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seanp2k2
The Mac App Store has some junk but I actually find it quite useful and do buy
stuff on there because I know I'll be able to install it if/when I switch
computers in the future. Same thing with Steam. I also expense most of my Mac
App Store purchases, so that probably makes a difference.

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Markoff
dunno about app store, but in my country responsibility lies on uploader, not
on me as user streaming video or music content for my private non-commercial
use, it makes sense since it's not in my ability to verify every service

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dawnerd
Noticed this yesterday when looking at the store on my xbox one. Tons of
variations of "free movies" almost like Microsoft doesn't even bother to spot
check whats submitted.

