Show’s over: Courts shutter one of the last major Popcorn Time websites

[Wireless News]

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/qlwcvYQKRfdemnJcwEE16A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztmaT1maWxsO2g9ODY7cT03NTt3PT EzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/homerun/digital_trends_973/22ef71d9092839a39531a64924bcf9bd (http://news.yahoo.com/show-over-courts-shutter-one-003417457.html)Popcorn Time, the popular-open-source project-that beautified the process of watching first-run-movies and TV shows for free, will soon become a bit harder to find if overseas justice systems have their way.-Variety-reports that-a popular derivative of Popcorn Time, popcorntime.io,-has-been-shut down in accordance with court decisions in New Zealand and Canada. The development-follows weeks of sporadic popcorntime.io uptime. Staff initially blamed the problem on infrastructure and a domain registrar, but law enforcement now appears-to have been the-culprit. The shutdown was part of a “coordinated legal action” by the Motion Picture Association of America-and several “international affiliates” to take down services perceived as infringing copyright, said MPAA chairman Chris Dodd in a statement. “Popcorn Time … [exists] for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them.” Related: Popcorn Time makes piracy so easy, you might not realize it’s illegal Popcorn Time emerged in 2014 as a peer-to-peer torrent-client for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux with a clear multimedia bent. But unlike most torrent clients, Popcorn Time’s interface evokes-streaming services like Netflix in its simplicity and ease of use. You can browse movies and TV shows by genre, for instance, and select-from an array of resolutions and subtitle options. Unlike Netflix, though, Popcorn Time operates much like any other torrent client:-it seeds (uploads) the material that it streams, and most of that material is copyrighted. Additionally,-Popcorn Time-stores temporary bits of files-on the computer to which it’s installed and shares identifying information, including-IP address, to the rest of the “swarm” — i.e., other users streaming the same movie or TV show. That put Popcorn Time in the crosshairs of studios, governments, and industry interest groups-from the beginning. In April, the U.K. High Court ruled that Internet service providers must block websites offering Popcorn Time software. And in-September, indie production houses Millennium Films and Nu Image filed a lawsuit-against 16-users who torrented films using Popcorn Time. Related: Meet the hackers who smuggled the Netflix of piracy aboard your iPad The group-behind Popcorn Time, for their part,-maintain-that the program-complies-with copyright law because it “[merely] takes existing-information and put it together” — the source of torrents, movie info, posters, and subtitles-can be edited in code. All the same, the Buenos Aries-based developers-shuttered-Popcorn Time’s official-website in March of last year under pressure from the MPAA.-“Our experiment has put as at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright-…-and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love,” they wrote in March of last year.-“And that’s not a battle we want a place in.” In its place have popped up dozens of “forks” — programs built atop of Popcorn Time’s original code — for a growing number of platforms. An Android and iOS client were released earlier this year, the latter with Apple’s-(potentially unwitting) blessing. Many pack usability improvements too —-the newest versions, like the one on which popcorntime.io was based, can stream movies and TV shows directly from a web browser. In a recent statement provided to Torrent Freak,-the developers of Popcorn Time blamed the proliferation of piracy on geographical restrictions and variable pricing. “Maybe it is time to consider the will of the people and offer them a legal, complete and useful service, no matter where they were born, instead of trying to punish people for … wanting to see the content artists and industries are offering,” they said. Related: Using Popcorn Time to pirate movies has never been easier thanks to a new update Others-beg-to differ. Nu Image and Millennium Films call Popcorn Time “software …-specifically designed for committing theft.” U.K. High Court judge Colin Birss-but it more bluntly: “No-one really uses Popcorn Time in order to watch lawfully available content,” he said. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that some developers are attempting to legitimize Popcorn Time with a focus on licensed-movie and TV sharing. But given the-brand’s considerable legal baggage, they’ve got an uphill climb.



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