Well, that didn’t last long. Just a little over a week ago, Popcorn Time descended upon the masses as a way to easily (if perhaps not entirely legally) stream torrents straight to your computer. Now, though, amidst pressure regarding piracy, Popcorn Time has officially closed its doors.
In a letter on Medium explaining its decision to shut down, Popcorn Time writes:
Piracy is not a people problem. It’s a service problem. A problem created by an industry that portrays innovation as a threat to their antique recipe to collect value. It seems to everyone that they just don’t care.
But people do.
We’ve shown that people will risk fines, lawsuits and whatever consequences that may come just to be able to watch a recent movie in slippers. Just to get the kind of experience they deserve.
And maybe, that asking nicely for a few bucks a month to watch whichever movie you want is a bit better than that.
Popcorn Time is shutting down today. Not because we ran out of energy, commitment, focus or allies. But because we need to move on with our lives.
Our experiment has put us at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love. And that’s not a battle we want a place in
Of course, just because Popcorn Time has decided it wants no part in the highly contentious debate over copyright law doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s gone forever. The app’s creators had made their code public and open-source, so it’s likely just a matter of time before a new group of developers decides to take matters into their own hands. But at least for now, people will just have to keep stealing movies the old-fashioned way. [Medium via Yahoo]