

Ask HN: Watching movies online - soparlaaurie

There are a lot of websites today on which you can watch, for "free", the last top movies. It is clear for me that they are infringing in a way or another the producers copyright.<p>What it is not so clear is about a person that watches an almost certain pirated movie posted online. Does the watcher also commits some sorts of felony ?<p>I'm not concerned with morality here, just with the legal implications of watching "free" movies online.
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imjonathanlee
When you stream something online, it's no different than downloading- it's
just an instant version of it. I'm not sure into the details why mostly
downloading makes it into lawsuits (maybe because it's easier to make a case),
but from what I've read, it's still illegal if it's a copyrighted movie.

Those sites that lets you stream free movies are legal, at least in the United
States. I built one of those sites myself so I know a little about them. As
long as ALL your content are links posted to 3rd party sites, you're basically
just an index. You don't expect people to sue Google for indexing bittorrent
sites do you? Needless to say, you will still face legal complications- Sites
that stream tv have been served before and shut down although the verdict
usually results in a not guilty. If you check out the footer of those
streaming sites, you'll notice almost all of them states explicitly "We do not
host any content on blah blah.com. Please serve your DCMA copyright notices
directly to the 3rd party websites that host them..."

Even the 3rd party sites that HOST the content is arguably hard to convict.
The terms and agreements state that the responsibility lies with the actual
user. The user agrees prior to signing up and every time they're making use of
the website that they are not uploading copyrighted content.

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dmc
AFAIK, it is currently not a crime within the United States, although there is
legislation in the pipeline to make streaming a felony[1]. These websites rely
on having links to the copyrighted content, rather than hosting it themselves.

[1] [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20071913-17/senate-
group-b...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20071913-17/senate-group-backs-
prison-time-for-illegal-streaming/)

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ljf
I've never tried one, is the steam worth watching? Is it a good copy? Is there
advertisements in the video or just along side?

I'd be very interested in hearing about the legality of the users of these
sites.

Currently using the (currently) legal www.zediva.com - $1 a movie, and I love
the concept of renting a DVD player over in the states. I hope that it takes
off.

~~~
ayers
I had a flatmate once who used dodgy online streaming websites. They were
riddled with pop ups and advertising but no ads in the actual video. The
quality of the movie also varied in source from "Cams" to "dvdrips".

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fabiandesimone
Take a look here: <http://cuevana.tv>

