How do you think they are crooks? How is the service illegal? I'm just curious to hear why you say so. Does anyone know about ClearPlay? They do the same thing, but through a DVD player. We've been using ClearPlay for over 10 years, and they won a battle in court. They don't alter the movie then sell it to anyone, instead, they provide a filter that makes it possible for us to mute or skip without our intervention, that's why it's legal. Vidangel is doing the same thing, just with streaming.
The only concern I have is their streaming/selling model. I personally don't see an issue with it, but the big studios will always find ways to shut services like this one down.
How about this... what if they had a way to 'rent' videos with a $5 tag like google/fandango/vudu? Would that make it 'legal' (aka more likely for the studios to lay off)? Would anyone rent at that price? I would.
ClearPlay does a similar streaming service, but you have to rent the movie from google first ($5), then the ClearPlay filters can be activated (price of filtering).