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Author
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Topic: Showbox: Download The App And Start Watching Free Movies
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 05-28-2018 05:56 PM
Another way to watch pirated movies... They claim legality is in the gray area... Not to me! They say the streaming is like streaming Netflix or Pandora, and since you don't keep a permanent copy, it's probably ok. Of course, Netflix and Pandora pay billions of dollars in license fees...
https://sciencetrends.com/showbox-download-app-watching-free-movies/
Showbox: Download The App And Start Watching Free Movies
by Kate Broome
Showbox is a free app to stream movies and music, below we’ll discuss how to download the apk, what Showbox is and whether it is completely legal.
We have a plethora of streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, but one of the best streaming apps out there is Showbox where you can watch movies and TV shows for free. Showbox is totally free to use and you can watch all the latest shows and movies until your heart is content with most of your devices you might have. To learn all about Showbox, what devices you can get it for, and how to use it, then check out this guide.
What Is Showbox?
When you actually sit down and think about it, our world is controlled by the Internet. It’s where we get our information, where we connect with friends, where we seek out for romantic partners, and it is also where we get our entertainment. Gone are the days of ordering packages from the cable company where we have to argue and get frustrated with the cable people because they give us an 8-hour timespan of when they will show up to fix the cable connection. Most people out there have Netflix, or Hulu, or even YouTube Red now where we can stream movies, and more and more companies are releasing their own version of “cable”. Companies like PlayStation, YouTube, and even DirecTv has started offering live television that can be streamed wherever you are.
Netflix was founded in 1997 originally as a company who specialized in DVD rentals by mail. They would send subscribers DVDs by mail and eventually began offering streaming services in 2007. The popularity of Netflix is truly astounding after 20 years of providing movies and shows to loyal customers. As of right now, Netflix has over 120 million subscribers. To put that into perspective the population of the United States is around 325 million people. Hulu, another popular streaming website had 17 million subscribers in 2017, and that number is expected to rise for 2019. Hulu was founded in 2007 and began doing streaming services not too long after. Other companies and people are also jumping on the streaming bandwagon and more and more streaming sites are popping up all over the web. One of those streaming sites that have become pretty popular recently is the application Showbox.
Showbox is another streaming service very similar to Netflix and Hulu, except for the fact that it is totally free to use. You can get Showbox for any of your Android devices, Windows computer, and even on your Mac computer. What is so nice about Showbox is that, besides the free price tag, new movies and shows are always being added in. This app is very user-friendly and once you actually start watching the movies and shows on here you will quickly fall in love with it.
Here are some great features that Showbox has to offer its users:
It is very user-friendly and easy to navigate
You can create different playlists based on your favorite TV shows and movies
They have an incredible array of movies and shows for you to choose from
You can download shows directly from Showbox
It is free
You can either download movies and show OR stream them if you do not want to clutter up your phone’s memory
Showbox is available on most mobile devices out there, as well as on your computer
Showbox is available on your Android phone, but it is not in the Google Play Store, so it is something you will need to download from a third party app store. We will delve into why Showbox is not on the Play Store later on in this guide. But for now, let’s go over where to get Showbox.
Where To Get Showbox
Like we said above, Showbox APK is available on your Android devices, Windows and Mac computers, and even your iOS devices. We would like to cover why Showbox is not available in the app store as well.
Showbox is an app that makes it easy for viewers to watch pirated movies and TV shows. We are going to dive considerably more in-depth into that in a later section when we discuss the legality of this app, so, for now, we can suffice it to say that it the reason it is not on any official app stores because of the fact that it has pirated movies on it, as well as the fact that it is not a licensed app. Since this app is not available to download from the iOS or Android app stores we will need to go over a few steps on our devices before we can download Showbox.
[Deleted all the how to install stuff]
Why isn’t Showbox on the Apple App Store?
Since the app has pirated videos you won’t find it any either the Apple App store nor Google Play since they don’t want to promote that kind of behavior. We will go considerably more in-depth with the legality shortly.
Another reason is that Showbox is not an actual licensed app. Showbox is not owned or operated by a single company, so it cannot be on any app store without any licensing. Showbox has content put up by many different servers and creators, which is what makes it so great because there is so much content for you to choose from.
[How To Download Showbox for Kindle Fire - Deleted]
The Problems With Showbox
Now we will discuss the pros and cons of Showbox.
Pros and Cons of Showbox
Pros
Lots of movies to choose from
Lots of shows to choose from
Free!
Lots of devices can use it
Using an emulator allows you to download lots of other great games and apps onto your computer
Cons
Legality is questionable and you are torrenting
Potential viruses in downloads
There is no official company and website for Showbox
No technical support when something goes wrong
Many links don’t work and sometimes the video quality is horrendous
Is Showbox Legal?
One of the biggest questions posed about Showbox is whether or not it is legal. In short, sort of.
Before the times of streaming on the Internet, you have probably heard of pirated movies that you could buy from that one weird kid who snuck his camcorder into theaters just to make $20 off a pirated movie. Doing that was illegal since the content was copywritten. Doing it that way stole money from the folks who worked hard on that movie. The keyword here is copywritten. Making pirated videos is copyright infringement and is punishable by law.
In 2014 there was a legal proceeding in which the legal system, in the UK, ruled that:
…the copies on the user’s computer screen and the copies in the internet ‘cache’ of that computer’s hard disk, made by an end-user in the course of viewing a website, satisfy the conditions that those copies must be temporary, that they must be transient or incidental in nature and that they must constitute an integral and essential part of a technological process, as well as the conditions laid down in Article 5(5) of that directive, and that they may therefore be made without the authorisation of the copyright holders.
In laments terms, this means that since streaming movies gives TEMPORARY files (temporary is the important term) it is not illegal to stream pirated movies since you are not keeping the movies. This is honestly an extremely gray area of the law since no laws have applied thus far to streaming pirated movies. This is more than likely the reason why neither the Apple App Store nor the Google Play Store actually carries Showbox since it is questionable. Do keep in mind as well that actually downloading the movies is illegal since those files are permanent. Of course, this ruling applies to the UK, but no other country has made any precedent like the UK has, so that is what we are going off of.
Another thing to point out is that when you actually download the movie or show it becomes 100% illegal since you are keeping those files. Showbox gives you the option to download movies and shows. However, if you want to get technical if you were to download a movie you already own, it is technically not illegal since you have already purchased the rights to the files. In other words let’s say you bought Star Wars: A New Hope a few years ago and now you want to download it onto your Samsung tablet. Since you have already bought the rights to that movie if you were to download it to your tablet it would be legal. If you decide to download a movie you don’t own, like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace THEN you would be infringing copywritten material and it would be illegal. So, if you want to toe that legality line you can either download the movies you already own or you can stream them. The way that the law is worded really puts Showbox in a gray area of the law. The honest answer to the question of “is Showbox legal” really depends on you. You can decide for yourself if you believe it is legal or not. Ultimately, it is extremely difficult for law enforcement to follow up on every single person who downloads a movie from Showbox, so you possibly would not get caught doing it (that doesn’t necessarily make it okay, however).
Now, just because it is not technically illegal does not mean that it is morally right. A lot of people worked extremely hard at creating the movies and shows that you are able to view for free, so those people don’t get the compensation they may deserve (or may not depending on how good or bad the show might be). The morality decision is totally dependent on how you view it and how you feel about it.
Safety Concerns
One important thing to note about Showbox is that it is not a licensed product from any one company. That means there is no official website for it, there is no technical support for it, and there is no one true download for Showbox. What does that mean for you as a user?
This means that some third-party websites who offer you downloads might very well put a virus or bug into the download so they can access your phone or any device you use Showbox.
Because there is no licensing for Showbox the app cannot be put on Google Play or the iOS store so you have to use those third-party websites. This means that when you encounter any kind of issue there is no technical support or website you can get help from (although there is a SubReddit for Showbox that does answer a lot of questions).
Because of this, there is a certain safety risk into using Showbox. If you want to use Showbox then I highly recommend browsing the Reddit for Showbox (can be found here). There are a lot of questions and answers posted on there, the safest links to avoid any viruses when you download Showbox, and users even review their experiences with Showbox so prospective users can check it out before downloading it.
There are times when you are streaming a movie and the quality of the video is awful or the picture is picture boxed and is hard to see. There are also other times that the links to videos are broken or don’t work. There are also times when the server are down and you can’t seem to get anything to work. When, or if, that happens to you when using Showbox I recommend force closing the app and trying it again at a later time. Or, check out that SubReddit and see what is posted there and hopefully they can answer any problems you might have.
Is Downloading Showbox Worth it?
To conclude this guide we will answer whether or not Showbox is worth downloading and using. First and foremost whether or not you decide to use Showbox it is important to not that it is up to you. Regardless of what other people say it is your choice to make.
There are a lot of streaming services across the internet if you were to Google “streaming movies” you can find over 6 million results pop up. That list includes Netflix, Hulu, iTunes Movies, Crackle, and even Verizon. While Showbox might not pop up in your mind when you think of streaming apps, it is actually an extremely popular app among Android fans. It satisfies many people’s streaming needs when they want to watch something newer, and it is extremely user-friendly so anyone can use it. The cons of Showbox are pretty great since legality, and morality, affect how Showbox is perceived. The fact that there is no official company to manage Showbox and third-party websites can put viruses into the download to affect your phone is concerning, to say the absolute least. So, with everything taken into consideration, is Showbox worth it?
I will preface this by saying that answer completely relies on you. Regardless what you read online or even in this guide the bottom line is that the app is worth it to YOU. Personally, I am torn on the answer because there are positives and negatives to Showbox. Over the weekend I went to the movie theater to see Deadpool 2. For two tickets, a popcorn and two drinks it cost us $50 to see the movie. Showbox, on the other hand, allows its users to watch movies and shows for free. Sure, the legality is questionable and morality is brought into effect, but nonetheless, people have turned to apps like Showbox or even other streaming companies partially because it is so expensive to go out and see movies when they come out in theaters.
If you were to Google “is Showbox worth it” you will get a plethora of articles saying how awful and horrible it is. One article, in particular, made Showbox sound unethical and unsafe. While browsing this webpage I got a notification from my computer’s virus protection saying it blocked a high severity virus coming from this site. The argument can then be made about how unethical it is to try to trick people into reading their article about how unethical Showbox is while trying to bug that person’s computer, but that is beside the point. The point is, while Showbox does have questionable laws to it (streaming versus downloading a movie, for example), it is worth at least checking out. I personally have had Showbox on my tablet and never really had any problems. Until the law is fully made crystal clear about streaming content being illegal people can’t judge the legality and morality of the app. So is it worth it? That is up to you to decide. Research the app and do your homework if you are concerned about it.
If you do download the movies and shows you should know that it is illegal to do that, but the chance of actually getting caught is slim. It is very similar to when Frostwire and Limewire were around. Tons of people downloaded the music from there and infected their computers with God knows what. Few people got caught, but there was still a risk with it. I tend to think of Showbox when streaming at least, it is similar to iHeart Radio or Pandora; you can stream the songs without it being copyright infringement, but when you download the songs without purchasing it, then it becomes illegal. As long as you stream the movies and shows it’s free, but once you download the movies of Showbox it becomes illegal. So, at its core, Showbox is in the gray area of the law since it offers both streaming AND downloading. If you stream your movies then the app is more than worth it.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 05-28-2018 06:29 PM
I didn't know this ShowBox yet, then again, those pirating tools are all quite short lived. I think that the fact that you have to install an unsigned application onto your Android box, to make it work should ring a few alarm bells... besides the fact that seeing all those movies without paying a dime should also ring a bell or two...
quote: worthless article
In 2014 there was a legal proceeding in which the legal system, in the UK, ruled that:
...the copies on the user’s computer screen and the copies in the internet ‘cache’ of that computer’s hard disk, made by an end-user in the course of viewing a website, satisfy the conditions that those copies must be temporary, that they must be transient or incidental in nature and that they must constitute an integral and essential part of a technological process, as well as the conditions laid down in Article 5(5) of that directive, and that they may therefore be made without the authorisation of the copyright holders.
In laments terms, this means that since streaming movies gives TEMPORARY files (temporary is the important term) it is not illegal to stream pirated movies since you are not keeping the movies. This is honestly an extremely gray area of the law since no laws have applied thus far to streaming pirated movies. This is more than likely the reason why neither the Apple App Store nor the Google Play Store actually carries Showbox since it is questionable. Do keep in mind as well that actually downloading the movies is illegal since those files are permanent. Of course, this ruling applies to the UK, but no other country has made any precedent like the UK has, so that is what we are going off of.
It's been quite a while, since I read such amount of horseshit.
First off all, this particular ruling was only in the UK, so it hasn't any real value in e.g. the USA., still, this ruling was entirely sane and in line with expectations:
The cache of your browser is merely a technical tool to speed up your browsing experience. It is not really a copy in the sense of copyright. Quite elementary: They're not hurting the bottom line of the copyright holder in any way, so he/she has nothing to claim here.
The fact that streaming usually also uses a cache has nothing to do with the final intention. You're making a copy of the data, whether or not temporarily, in order to consume said copy for your own benefit. This is clearly what copyright regulates and therefore illegal in many if not most jurisdictions.
Trying to spin it like the "caching story" as an excuse, will not help you in any legal case you might find you in, except if you maybe plead for insanity...
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