Matrix Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 Earlier this month, an MPA takedown notice pulled Popcorn Time's GitHub repository offline. The Hollywood group, which also represents Netflix, argued that the code facilitates mass copyright infringement. While that may be the case, Popcorn Time filed a counternotice arguing that they own the code. Faced with contradicting requests, Github has now reinstated the repository. For more than half a decade, Popcorn Time has been a thorn in the side of Hollywood. The ‘Netflix for Pirates’ offers an easy-to-use application that opens the door to a library of thousands of streamable movies and TV-shows. The Motion Picture Asociation (MPA) recognized this threat early on and pressured the original developers to throw in the towel. That worked, but it came too late as the open-source project was swiftly revived by others. Today, Popcorn Time lives on through many project forks. The most popular is PopcornTime.app, which like its predecessor, shares its source code publicly on the developer hosting platform GitHub. This allows others to download, modify, and share it. The MPA is not happy with this and took action recently. The movie industry group informed GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, about the infringing nature of the software. According to the MPA, the application includes links to pirate sites, pirate APIs, and pirate torrent trackers, which are used to download pirated movies and TV-shows. On top of that, the MPA suggested that GitHub itself may be liable for copyright infringement if the company fails to take action. While the MPA’s interpretation of the law is likely not shared by GitHub, the company did remove the Popcorn Time code. In most cases that would be the end of the story, but Popcorn Time was not backing off without a fight. The developers submitted a DMCA counternotice explaining that the MPA’s request is not legitimate. The code is owned by Popcorn Time, not the MPA, and Popcorn Time asked GitHub to restore access. “The code is 100 % ours and do not contain any copyright [sic] material please check again,” the developer wrote. The app’s developers made a good point here. The identified code (not the built app) is not directly copyright infringing and it contains no direct links to copyright-infringing material either. This means that a DMCA notice may not be the right tool here. Faced with both requests, GitHub has now decided to restore full access to the Popcorn Time repository. This decision doesn’t necessarily mean that it agrees with the app developers, however. The DMCA simply prescribes that, following a counternotice, content can be restored after two weeks, unless the claiming party files a lawsuit. In this case, the MPA chose not to file a lawsuit against the Popcorn Time operators, so the code repositories are back online again. Whether the MPA will follow-up with further action has yet to be seen. However, the whole episode highlights an interesting issue. There is little doubt that the Popcorn Time application is a pirate app. However, the code, as hosted by GitHub, is not infringing per se. As such, regular takedown notices don’t appear to work here. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylence Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 Nice, great decision there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vladv Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 Very good decision indeed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrACKzONE Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 Stremio i like more then Popcorn... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted May 21, 2020 Share Posted May 21, 2020 13 hours ago, CrACKzONE said: Stremio i like more then Popcorn... Yes also Kodi 17 x with torrent addons Elementum and Quasar I you use Kodi 18 only Elementum works also there is Popcorn Time for Kodi all that crap is hosted on github and never been took down If you know were to look .. Popcorn Time is for people who don't care about video quality they only have YIFY and YTS. With Elementum and Quasar you get lots of links 4k , 1080p , full Bluray , 4k , 1080p , 720p re encodes an web hd plus your not limited to just movies you get tv shows as well or just one website . If YTS shuts down popcorn is gone unless they link up to another website . Quasar on Kodi 17.6 im scraping Magnet DL , RARBG , 1337x.to , YTS and Glow torrents it still has all that and its not updated in years but the addons are still at github , I have Stremio too it's nice . I try Popcorn one time and soon after it had problems never used it since. Yify got shut down and so did Popcorn. I moved on to using Kodi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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