Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
'Free' online movie sites. Are they legal?
Posted by Andy Barrons on 30 October 2009 - 12:02pm.
Quick and stupid question for the most erudite of Massives.
I fancy watching a couple of new-ish movies without having to rent a DVD and had a very quick google of some online movie sites.
A lot popped up as 'free'. Good. We're skint. I like free.
But are they? There was a lot of new stuff on each of these things and I would fully assume a charge or a subscription along the lines of BT Vision etc.
Would any of you have any experience or any considered opinions on these sites?
Grateful for any comments, as ever.
- More from Andy Barrons.
- Login or register to post comments
-
If they're offering mainstream Hollywood movies for free
then they're 99.999% certain to be illegal.
What he said
I had to explain Sra Malo last night that even though the website said it was OK to get the new Fame for free, it actually wasn't and I certainly didn't want her clicking on any links on the page.
I have been using filmous.com for a while.
It isn't strictly free ($1.50-$2.00 per film) but then again it doesn't seem strictly kosher either. For example I downloaded Quantum Of Solace and it had "For Your Consideration" all over it. A couple of others have had a movieberry.com logo in the corner. Sometimes they also have cinema releases straight away e.g. The Hurt Locker, District 9 & Star Trek.
Having said that, on the whole I am happy with what I get from them. I can put the films on a USB stick and watch them on the big LCD quite happily. I have had a couple that weren't watchable but if I contact support they are usually quite happy to credit the cost back to me.
Grey area
Like many of the "pay by the MB" mp3 sites operating in that part of the world (Filmous is a Russian website), they'll claim to be perfectly legitimate, while any actual rights owner will almost certainly disagree.
Sites like
Stagevu are most certainly not legal. Not at all. Just so as we are clear.
What's the obsession with "free"?
We don't expect our weekly shop to be "free", so why music and movies?
I thought it was a preference
not an obsession
No obsession
Just intrigued by the plethora of logo'd and very credible sites all saying 'free'
Rats smelt at twenty paces.
I have no objection or problem with paying for this kind of thing, but we all love a bargain, eh?
For an excellent run-through the ethics of 'free'
Can I refer the Massive to Chris Anderson (associate editor of Wired) who has written a book called Free on the history of this idea from jello and Gillette shavers to the net. He is very lucid on how 'free' relates to getting paid eventually.
Oh, and it's available as a free audiobook on Spotify.
My own position (see the Ike and Tina post a few days ago) is that the illegal/grey area download has at the very most to be a last resort if the track/film is just not available through legal means. And it is (presumably) exposing your computer in the way that searching for porn does too (not that I do that).
Oh and another thing
I'm a devoted user of bookmooch www.bookmooch.com which is a book-swapping site. Does anyone use and can recommend a dvd swapping site - as a way of getting new ones without paying (which is what you wanted Andy) or using dodgy russian download sites, like swapadvd?
Thanks Trevelyan
An exchange site. That sounds like something perfectly fair.
To clarify just a little, I'm not after anything for nowt and I don't want to be seen to be on the scrounge as it were. I'm feeling rather lazy at the moment so I'd rather download legally online rather than drag my fat sorry arse down into town to Blockbuster to pick up a few movies. An initial search of online movie availability threw up all this talk of highly questionable 'free'.
Yep, I'm skint but only in relative terms. I'm ready and able to pay to watch a movie.
How about one of the online rental services?
Lovefilm or Sofa Cinema? I've used the latter for a few ywars and never had a problem with it.
Synchronicity
This is quite self-serving, but a mate of mine who makes horror movies contacted me this very evening promoting his new - music related - flick and mentioned how they're allowing people to stream it over the Interweb for free. I'm including his whole post as it does actually address why some sites may make movies available for nothing as well as promoting his flick. Whether it's any cop, I don't know. I haven't seen it myself yet.