Movie studios maintain an aggressive legal approach to piracy still, many alternatives to Popcorn Time have taken its place. It was exacerbated during the pandemic after many films skipped theatrical releases and went straight to digital. Popcorn Time, the highly popular and extremely-easy-to-use 'Netflix for piracy' service, came back Tuesday after a years-long hiatus.The move comes as people around the world are quarantined or being asked to stay in their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. Movie piracy is still a problem for Hollywood. The site also contains a chart of interest over time measured in online searches for the app, similar to the one Netflix sent to investors in 2015. A goodbye note posted by Popcorn Time, with an illustration of a bag of movie-theater popcorn with X marks for eyes, proclaims “R.I.P.” at the top of the page.
On Tuesday, the group behind the app emailed reporters declaring its end. “The torrent world was here with millions of users way before us and will be here with BILLIONS of users way after us,” he said at the time.
The software instead offered a link to computers around the world hosting the content through the file-sharing system BitTorrent. In 2015, a developer associated with Popcorn Time told Bloomberg that the service wasn’t responsible for piracy because it didn’t host any stolen material itself. But the app’s code was open-source, and other developers jumped in to release new versions. indicated law enforcement may have played a role.
Popcorn Time’s creators deserted the service shortly after its introduction, and emails released after a hack of Sony Group Corp.