Popcorn Time partner shuts down site then disappears - Did the movie industry get to him?

I have been following the fast development of Popcorn Time and testing it and it's many forks on various systems. For those who don't know Popcorn Time streams movie torrents (soon to add Tv shows) in real time to your desktop. Use of this open source app and it's forks may be illegal in your country depending what on what type of data you choose to stream over the tool. This app can stream 720p and 1080p quality films and many of the streams are pirated/ripped dvd's.

The tool is available on Windows, Mac and Linux and can be made to work on Android phones. Tons of folks are using this. Just like Napster helped force a change in the way the music industry delivered it's music, many people feel this app and it's forks will cause the movie industry to change the way it delivers movies completely. This is The serious threat the movie industry has feared for years. This will tick people off - people who stand to lose lots of money.

Now here's the rub - The past few days the gethub site and main website has been taken down. No reports surfaced until the co-founder of the tool recreated a new website and gethub repository and explained his partner took the site down then suddenly disappeared - not to be heard from since !

On March 16, Popcorn Time was released again by another group of developers on GitHub,[9][10] but it was taken down again on April 2.[11] Now isra17 the co-founder of Popcorn-Team states that he doesn't know why it was taken down and that he's waiting a reply from co-founder jduncanator who hasn't been heard from since.[12] isra17 has made another repository where he and other contributors will continue development.[13] Also a new website has been launched to support the new repository.[14]

en.wikipedia.org...

I don't know about you but to me, that's chilling.. it's like someone got to the guy or something... I can see motive and I can see lots of people with it.

People who stand to lose lots of money.

Or go bankrupt and have to shut down and tell thier families that they can't be supported anymore as thier buissness has been robbed.

Seriously, the movie buisness can only survive if money goes to the bank, if not they will shut down.

Why is it people has such a hard time to pay for the entertaintment they wanna watch, you don't go on a vacation and then come back and say i don't want to pay cause i didn't like it, you don't go to the car dealer take a car, drive around doing your daily buissness and then dump it cause you didn't like it, but when it comes to digital movies, well, you get the movie you watch it and decide not to pay for it cause you didn't like it and then send it to the trashbin.

It dosn't make sense.

I do agree though that copyright holders should losen up a bit, but you should still pay THEM for what you are watching, there are a lot of streaming services out there, some you pay for(Netflix, hulu and others) some you don't(Justin.tv, vaughn and others)

Anyway, the guy propably just laying low somewhere, as it says on the website, they will continue with other things in thier life....

Mianeye

People who stand to lose lots of money.

Or go bankrupt and have to shut down and tell thier families that they can't be supported anymore as thier buissness has been robbed.

Seriously, the movie buisness can only survive if money goes to the bank, if not they will shut down.

Why is it people has such a hard time to pay for the entertaintment they wanna watch

Actually it's less to do with the money and more to do with how people want to watch.

Video streaming accounts for the majority of net traffic these days. people want to watch what they want when they want with no adverts. It's that simple.

Netflix proves that people are willing to pay for the privilege and thus the entertainment industry needs to realign to meet the needs of the customer.

remember the customer is King.... these media moguls couldn't give a monkeys about what you the customer really wants and so that leave a massive gap in the market for the likes of popcorn time.

I think popcorn time is a seminal moment for digital distribution.

Peace,

Korg.

Mianeye

People who stand to lose lots of money.

Seriously, the movie buisness can only survive if money goes to the bank, if not they will shut down.

I agree.

Thus, as a businessman, I would say that it would be far, far more effective (and in their best interest) to figure out how to monetize their product in light of recent technological developments.

In other words: they have an audience that wants their product so badly they are willing to break the law to get it....sounds like an advertisers dream.

reply to post by Korg Trinity


THis is exactly true.

I don't even mind the commercials so much. Just want to watch when its convenient for me and my wife, and our hectic lifestyle.

We go through Netflix and watch series that we didn't catch the first time (because of the above hectic lifestyle). We just finished season 3 of The Walking Dead last night. My only way to view season 4 on my TV is to download it (i use flash video and download helper to avoid torrent sites...not really needing HD quality, just decent SVGA type quality). Same thing with Sons of Anarchy. I can't watch season 6 without downloading it.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Good point and you are right.

I think Sony is working on something if not already running.

The wait there has been i believe is cause of the problem with slow internet and stable for everyone, those huge amount of data that streaming takes are still a problem for ISP's and they weren't fit to handle those amounts.

Gaming streaming has become very popular in a short yearspan, but it started like # cause the ISP's coulden't handle it, now is a perfect time for the movie buisness to make the change and i do believe it's on its way.

Also one of the main problem is TV services as they are still trying to keep thier customers with different movies and series and they don't like to see people going to the internet to watch thier intertainment, so they propably got a slimy hand on the movie buisness.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

I'm in the middle on this one. On the industry side, if all movies were ripped off and nobody paid for anything there wouldn't be any movies made anymore. On the user side, I get very annoyed when I purchase a DVD based on a review (what else the cover picture ?) to find out it is utter rubbish. If I paid a few pennies for something that was rubbish then not a problem but a few pounds then I get annoyed. After all you can't take the DVD back and demand your money because you bought something that was rotten AFTER you watched it. And yet , strictly speaking, you did not get what you paid for.....

This also applies to music.

When it comes to live tv , specifically sports, I can watch football (soccer) streamed from Russia in hi-def and yet the camera filming the match is located , literally, tens of miles away!!!! I end up watching a match with at least two adverts in Russian.....hmm Why don't the broadcasters have at least two brain cells and think "hang on if we stream it in English with english ads we get get advertising revenue for 45 minutes constantly as opposed to the 5 minutes between halves".

The solution to all of the above is for the media industry to stream their products for pennies with guaranteed quality. Movies could be shown with adverts off screen (most movies are widescreen and thus have that black area at the bottom of a TV screen available for advertising). They could charge a premium (per view basis) for non advertising streaming. If they were to price this right they would kill off the pirates and generate an income. The viewer would also be guaranteed a high quality product and never feel they are being ripped off. Fans of a genre would still buy the CD or DVD !!!!!!

Well that's my sixpenneth....

I have close family who have worked in the industry in various capacities for decades, I think they deserve a fair salary for their work and effort but to be honest I personally think they are WAY over paid for what they do. It's nice to have a hit show or movie and rake in the dough if it deserves it but when you have Actors, directors, etc etc etc demanding outrageous sums for cookie cutter garbage I'd rather watch Youtube.

I hate Youtube.

reply to post by Mianeye


Hogwash............... FREE World.......................

The Bot

reply to post by Mianeye


in program advertising is another way.

There won't be a "paradigm" shift that will save them. It will take a completely renovated business model, one that extracts revenue from currently novel methods.

Mianeye

Why is it people has such a hard time to pay for the entertaintment they wanna watch

You should come to Australia sometime and experience the fact that Aussies generally don't get access to a movie the rest of the world has already seen 6 months or more beforehand. Then try turning on the television and find a single program that is newer than 2 years old.

It's not about wanting stuff for free. It is wanting to be able to consume WHAT we want WHEN we want without being beholden to antiquated rules that see us Aussies being told to bend over and take it where the sun don't shine. We have finally had enough, and if piracy is the only way to wake these idiots up to what the masses want then so be it. GAME ON.

Seriously, the movie buisness can only survive if money goes to the bank, if not they will shut down.

If the movie/tv companies were that hard up because of piracy then please explain why Avatar (that years most pirated film) also broke all box office records and made the most money for a movie ever?

Cry me a lying river.

bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by Mianeye

 

in program advertising is another way.

There won't be a "paradigm" shift that will save them. It will take a completely renovated business model, one that extracts revenue from currently novel methods.

I'd pay a subscription fee any day to avoid Advertising.....

I am ironically funding an advertising project at the moment.... Though this has more to do with selling virtual advertising space for use with augmented reality devices

It's big business and big money..... Adverts will become more interactive in the not too distant future and so we will see them shrink away from static media anyway... So the industry will face a double whammy.... loss of revenues from two fronts doesn't bode well at all....

Unfortunately very much like the music industry the film and TV industry has so much infrastructure in place to dismantle and reorganize it is very likely the old networks will shrink and die in favor of new media houses that can start from scratch and get it right from the get go.

Sony will release a cloud based service very soon... but it will only distribute Sony productions... and so will fail.

I would say that Facebook is likely to be one of the largest distribution networks of the not too distant future along with Google along with of course Netflix. I predict Amazon will sell their media distribution front "love Film" to either Google or Facebook.

Watch those companies for media distribution news....

Peace,

Korg.