Just last week we reported on a streaming service called Popcorn Time. It was basically a pirate’s equivalent of Netflix where users would be able to stream torrents instead of downloading the files onto their computers.
According to its creators, they claim that Popcorn Time is 100% legal, although we’re not sure how. Perhaps it could be due to a loophole in the law, but whatever it is, its creators asserted its legality, although the act of piracy itself is not. That being said, they decided to shut down its service anyway, but not before the code for the program made its way onto GitHub where it has since been forked several times.
In fact Popcorn Time is now back, except that this time round it is being run by torrent website, YTS, who claims to have taken over the project, according to a report from TorrentFreak. According to YTS developer, Jduncanator, he has confirmed that they will not be letting the Popcorn Time project die and will be picking up where they left off, although they do not claim any ownership of the project.
“The YTS team will now be picking up the Popcorn Time project and continuing on like previously. We are in a better position copyright wise as for us, because it’s build on our API, it’s as if we have built another interface to our website. We are no worse off managing the project than we would be just supplying the movies.”
The installer itself has not been made available to the public just yet, but it is expected to be released soon. We’re not sure if YTS’ take on Popcorn Time will be any different from the original, so we guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Once again we do not advocate piracy, but it is interesting to see the different and creative ways that pirates come up with in their attempts at providing free music/books/movies to those who want it.