MPAA Launches WhereToWatch.com to Combat Movie Piracy

Hey, movie pirates: The MPAA sees you. They see you, and they want you to cut it out. To that end, they've launched a new site called WhereToWatch.com, a helpful little resource that lets you type in a movie and compare different (legal) ways for watching it online.

Via their blog:

 "Finding your favorite films and TV shows legally and quickly online has always involved searching and sifting. There are more than 100 platforms that legally stream content now, but there’s never been a single source to help you find them, and, find out what movies and shows they’re offering. Simply searching for “Inside Llewyn Davis legal streaming” brings up RottenTomatoes.com (which then directs you elsewhere), Amazon, some illegal service (negating the “legal” in your original search to begin with), Cinemablend.com (which takes you to yet another platform) and Oscar Isaac’s IMDB page. Not entirely simple after all. Considering that last year, thoughtful film and television lovers like yourself used legal online services to access more than 5.7 billion film and 56 billion television episodes, there needed to be a single source to find and access all of these services. Now there is."

Subtext--"What's your excuse for illegally downloading now, suckers?"

So, for example, you want to know the best place to watch... let's say Snowpiercer, a movie that if you haven't watched already, you really should, because it's excellent. Boom:

Or if you're on a Scorsese kick you can search for him, though personally I'd prefer a site with all a director's movies on one page to a list that requires a bunch of clicking to see a comparison of availability between multiple films. So if I want to see a Buster Keaton movie but don't know which one, I can just do a quick scan to see what I can get for $1.99 on Amazon Instant. As Where To Watch is in beta, there are still some bugs--clicking Keaton's 1927 film College, for example, takes me to this, which... no. No, that is not the movie I wanted.

Those minor complaints aside, it looks pretty handy. You can even set up an alert for something that's currently in theaters, because I don't particularly want to pony up $14 to see Dracula Untold, but it's something I might be OK with slapping down a few bucks for one night when I'm feeling bored and masochistic.


(via The Daily Dot)