52 ms·

Popcorn Time repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown

519 points by sandes 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago
The notice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-01-MPA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0... The counternotice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-04-MPA-counternotice.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0...
- 6nf 6y ago
  Since there's a counter notice, I guess Github will put it back up now? That's the normal DMCA process I think?
  - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
    Yes, but the DMCA requires them to wait at least 10 business days first. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#g_2_C https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#g_2_C
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      Wtf? That’s insane. I can just randomly DDOS projects by submitting DMCA notices? Edit: Just realized there’s nothing distributed about it.
      - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
        False DMCA notices are, in theory, perjury, but in practice, yes.
        redwall_hp 6y ago
        Have we ever seen a media company prosecuted for perjury, despite copious evidence that they constantly misuse DMCA takedowns to do exactly that?
        monocasa 6y ago
        Nope.
        sneak 6y ago
        Not once, no.
        downerending 6y ago
        Not sure anyone ever gets prosecuted for perjury. It's the norm in divorce cases, for example.
        saagarjha 6y ago
        Well there was the contempt of court and all with Bill Clinton…
        monocasa 6y ago
        And the amount of times I've seen a cop perjure themselves is unreal. We know that our former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper perjured himself before congress with impunity as well. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clappers-perjury-dc-made-men-dont-get-charged-lying-congress-jonathan-turley-column/1045991001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...
        downerending 6y ago
        Probably shouldn't drip gasoline on this smoldering dumpster fire, but pretty much anyone at a high political level that testifies "I can't remember" is probably committing perjury, yes. Oh well. https://www.newsweek.com/ken-starr-says-he-almost-charged-hillary-clinton-perjury-1117125 https://www.newsweek.com/ken-starr-says-he-almost-charged-hi...
      - lostcolony 6y ago
        Out of touch politicians coming up with tech policy in the 90s. Tada!
      - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
        Presumably, you'd have to succeed in that notice leading to a takedown. The 10 day waiting period only presumably kicked in when GitHub decided the DMCA was valid and actionable.
        URSpider94 6y ago
        No, Github has no discretion in this process. Their only job is to follow the policy to the letter: provide the notice to the presumed offender and disable content, then forward the counter-notice to the original complainant and re-enable the content in 10 days.
        KenoFischer 6y ago
        GitHub can decide a takedown notice is facially invalid. Of course if it's later found that they're wrong by a court of competent jurisdiction, they'd be in trouble, so they're likely to be extremely conservative in making this determination.
        URSpider94 6y ago
        I'm curious to know whether platforms ever even bother to evaluate takedowns, beyond the most basic fact-checking (e.g. the item to be taken down is spelled properly). It seems like one of those cases where the risk of getting it wrong outweighs the benefit of trying to discriminate between good and bad requests.
        colejohnson66 6y ago
        Doesn’t Google deny DMCA requests sometimes?
        duskwuff 6y ago
        Sometimes. Not as often as they should, but they will at least reject keyword-based delisting requests for obviously innocent web properties like Wikipedia or IMDB (typically because they have an page about the movie that some overzealous "copyright defense" outfit is trying to protect).
      - khun533 6y ago
        This is why you should never host your open source project on a US server. You're one DMCA notice away from being destroyed, needing a lawyer to counter claim properly, etc. This is insanity. Git hosted in Europe: https://codeberg.org/ https://codeberg.org/ Anyone know other git hosts outside the US? pls reply
        lazyjones 6y ago
        Perhaps you're right, but perhaps DMCA takedowns are a preferred alternative to what the MPAA does in other situations, like the Kim Dotcom raid in NZ.
        crankylinuxuser 6y ago
        Other areas that could be used would be like Tor and IPFS. Tor is anti-censorship but can be a SPOF. IPFS provides full identity of machine to the network (internal and external IPs), but is highly redundant and resistant to single attacks. And IPFS refuses to mainline work for Tor/I2P... So it still spits out every adapter to the world. Yes, even your internal non-routable addresses.
        i_d_rather_read 6y ago
        > This is why you should never host your open source project on a US server. You're one DMCA notice away from being destroyed, needing a lawyer to counter claim properly, etc. This is an excellent takeaway that should be upvoted.
      - kevingadd 6y ago
        Yes, you can, and there's nothing the victim can do about it. Many service providers won't even give you the details of the person who submitted the notice so you can sue them (Google, for example).
    - nullc 6y ago
      Require isn't exactly the right word. If they don't they lose the DMCA safe harbor. If it's really obviously not an infringement there isn't much harm in that. This is the reason that you can't use weak (or even unambiguous!) copyright infringement to take down popular sites-- their hosts will just forego the safe harbor, perhaps in exchange for indemnification. Private parties? No such luck.
  - ben509 6y ago
    No, the MPAA is going to sue them now. To file a counter notice, they must have a "good faith" reason for their dispute. The MPAA's claim is that Popcorn is used for piracy. IANAL and don't know the case law, so I don't know if it has merit. But a "good faith" dispute has to address the claim. Their dispute is arguing that they own the code. The MPAA never claimed they don't, that's simply not responding to the substance of their argument. They should really get an attorney. FFS, at least read the counter notice guidelines; I think they believe they're dealing with Github customer support.
    - gpm 6y ago
      They have a good faith reason for the counter notice, DMCA notices don't cover contributory copyright infringement. The MPAA committed perjury by submitting this notice. The MPAA still might still sue them though, DMCA notices don't cover it but copyright law does. IANAL, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah,
    - loeg 6y ago
      You're confusing the broader DMCA law and DMCA copyright violation takedown notices specifically. The DMCA copyright takedown notice is to assert to a common provider (Github) that your copyrighted work is currently copied on their platform (Github). As a result, the platform is obliged to immediately assume guilt on the part of their user and take down the content, regardless of evidence. There was no MPA-owned copyrighted material in the repository the DMCA takedown notice was invoked on. The popcorn developers own the copyright to their code, and no MPA media assets are in the Github repository. The MPA has no copyright claim against the source code on Github. The MPA could sue the developers for any reason they like, but that is a very different process from DMCA takedown notices. This was an abuse of the DMCA takedown process and the counternotice is wholly correct.
      - ben509 6y ago
        I'm not confusing it, perhaps MPAA is. And if Popcorn had made your point, then they'd have made a good faith counter notice. You're directly addressing the takedown notice by disputing its basis in law. But a judge can't work off what a party ought to say, they have to adjudicate what they do say.
- wp381640 6y ago
  Notable that Netflix only joined the MPA a year ago and are part of this notice. Welcome to the club.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple and Amazon join in to these kinds of things soon as well :/
  - syshum 6y ago
    It is always sad when companies that were once small and Anti-Establishment grow to become the establishment and use their new size and power to stomp on people.... I remember when the MPAA (as it was known then) was trying to shut down the little known service that was attempting to rent DVD's via mail....
- FiloSottile 6y ago
  Note how that's not a DMCA notice in the usual sense ("we own the IP of content distributed on your platform"), but a "strongly worded letter" that mentions the DMCA but just says "we'd like your assistance in stopping this illegal activity". At least it's not run-of-the-mill DMCA abuse. It's interesting that GitHub decided to process it like a DMCA notice, unclear to me if they had to, and even less clear if the counter-notice is meaningful.
  - adjkant 6y ago
    This is one of those cases where I bet Github's ownership is in play. Github the company may not care about what the MPA thinks of them and could consider fighting this. Microsoft I'm sure have at least some business linked to the film industry and do not want to poke the bear.
  - jhauris 6y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, but I believe this is an actual DMCA notice. It has all the required components[0] of one. Is there something I'm missing? What makes this not a DMCA notice? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Notice_from_copyright_owner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_...
    - wtallis 6y ago
      It's not at all clear that they have identified anything on GitHub that is a copyright infringement. They've correctly claimed that the software is being used elsewhere to accomplish infringement, but the URLs they identified aren't reproductions or derivative works of any movies.
Jaxkr 6y ago
Very interesting. The repository does not contain any copyrighted content, but it unabashedly promotes copyright violation.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  The precedent the notice cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,..., specifically the opinion provided: > We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    What an obscene abuse of power that ruling is. Are gun shops liable for the mass shootings that take place by people that bought guns there? Didn't think so. Going after the tool-makers is right out of the authoritarian playbook.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      I think there's a valid distinction between a product that can be misused but has a legitimate use, and a product solely built to enable illegal activity. If the business knows their product isn't useful for anything but crime, the only reason they're in business is the crime. VLC Media Player is a multi-use video player sometimes used to play pirated videos. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file transfer protocol designed to transfer and distribute large files efficiently. Popcorn Time is explicitly built to find and play illegally shared content.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        But that's not what Grokster said. It was to the effect that if you promote your service for piracy then you're liable even if it does have non-infringing uses. The result has, ironically, been quite an inconvenience for copyright holders, because it meant that the developers of piracy-enabling services merely stopped promoting them as such even though nothing about the technology was any different, which made it harder to shut them down because of the optics. If you have someone producing a mixed-use technology but actively promoting it for infringement then it's easier to convince a judge that they're the bad guys. Now that any company with lawyers doesn't do that anymore, it's a lot harder to paint that picture. Technology-wise there isn't much in Popcorn Time that wouldn't still be there in a legitimate YouTube competitor. And this gets double complicated when it's software rather than a service because (presumably) the liability for promoting infringement would be on the people doing the promoting, but what does that mean for the software? What happens if somebody else who isn't promoting infringement starts distributing a version of the same code? Is it different than some independent code which does exactly the same thing?
Aloha 6y ago
Can you use the DMCA in this way?
- greglindahl 6y ago
  The DMCA is easy to abuse without any consequences. There's no known case of anyone ever being legally sanctioned for filing a DMCA takedown, even when it involved lies such as assertions of copyright ownership that were clearly untrue.
  - ikeboy 6y ago
    Depends on what your criteria is. Google settled for 25k with someone who submitted fake notices to YouTube. Given that most litigation ends before a decision, it's likely there's been other private settlements. More broadly than just DMCA, but here's a partial list of successful cases: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4226764/dynamic-designs-distribution-incorporated-v-nalin-manufacturing-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4226764/dynamic-designs... awarded declaratory judgement and 37k in attorney fees for a false claim made to eBay (see docket 38) >On November 11, 2011, Mr. Nalin filed a “VeRO complaint with eBay asserting that the Dynamic Designs speaker adapter infringed Nalin’s trademark rights.” https://courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/appellate/unreportedopinions/2017/2556s15.pdf https://courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/appell... 150k jury award of punitive damages, reduced by appeals court to 75k, for a false Amazon complaint of counterfeiting https://casetext.com/case/alexander-binzel-corporation-v-nu-tecsys-corporation https://casetext.com/case/alexander-binzel-corporation-v-nu-... really old case not involving the Internet, but a $4 million jury award reduced by the district court to $2.34 million+interest for false claims of counterfeiting
    - greglindahl 6y ago
      Given the large number of attempts at legal sanctions which have all failed, I'm not so sure that an out-of-court settlement is that interesting. So yes, that's what I think is important. Edit: I'm having a hard time keeping up with your edits, can you stop editing at some point? You've added 3 links about counterfitting. The DMCA only applies to copyrights, not trademarks or patents.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
> Popcorn Software is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player.
- duemti 6y ago
  "Use it as it suits you on your own responsibility." DMCA abuse.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    Why did you reply to me? I literally just copied and pasted the project description (the comment section was empty when I posted it, and I didn't even know what Popcorn Time is...), and I didn't state any position on DMCA (to set the records straight, I'm not a fan of DMCA). Please do not blindly assume other people's positions based on what they didn't say. Thanks. BTW, I didn't downvote your comment.
bluedino 6y ago
Well duh.
kalium-xyz 6y ago
This is clear DMCA abuse, the popcorn time repository itself does not contain copyrighted content. This is why using a centralized closed source service managed by a tech conglomerate as the “hub” of our open source movement might not always be for the best
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Without seeing the attachments, it looks like at bare minimum, examples of copyrighted content were shown in their screenshots. But the main issue is that links to piracy was built in, such that a user could immediately download this and begin pirating content. Movie studios are most concerned that this could even lead to people pirating content without realizing that they're doing something illegal. Ultimately, choosing a centralized provider versus elsewhere doesn't have a lot of impact. The MPAA can send notices to your hosting provider, your domain registrar, your internet service provider, or ultimately, get the police to raid your house/office and confiscate your personal machines. The idea that the Internet exists outside of the real physical world, and you can just do whatever you want is a fantasy sold by science fiction, but exactly that: A fantasy.
  - ddevault 6y ago
    This is some bootlicking nonsense. Screw the MPAA. How can anyone seriously defend them? We've known they were the bad guy for decades. The MPAA is a multi-billion dollar bully, that's the long and short of it. PopcornTime has never itself been guilty of copyright violation, even if its users have been, and the MPAA ought to know better. Even if they were going after it for showing copyrighted posters or frames in their screenshots, that's frivolous as hell and clearly covered by fair use. What they're really doing is bullying: they don't like what this application does, even though they know it's legal, so they'll utilize an broken law which is absolutely ripe for one-sided abuse by copyright holders to screw the little guy, knowing there's no oversight and will be no reprecussions for their behavior. Copyright must be abolished. The fact that anything created today will never enter the public domain within any of our lifetimes proves that the system has failed. We have an obligation to exercise civil disobedience to protest the broken system. I will shed no tears for billionares caught up in the flack. They never shed a tear for the tens of thousands of people they screwed with expensive lawsuits, nor the billions they screwed out of their rightful inheritance of the collective works of humanity.
Endlessly 6y ago
What is PopCornTime? It is the “Netflix” of pirated movies, learn more here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > What is PopCornTime? b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41 > I haven't used PopCornTime for a long time, as I have Netflix+HBO subscriptions, but it's time to reinstall it as a way to disobay the takedown. > only tested it years ago, can't be arsed with the gobshite one gets mainly from US.. media junk, like the food. but min this is back up, I will give it a swirl. When will they learn a p2p system/network can never truly be taken down so long as Human's have personal agency. Furthermore, Github was always a central point of failure, made even more vulnerable due to its purchase from M$. This only further proves why that is. > Out of touch politicians coming up with tech policy in the 90s. Tada! This is mere optics and one motivated by self-praise as it doesn't really work. But I'm glad some carry on the spirit of Gene Kan.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > > What is PopCornTime? > b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41 magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41&dn=PopCornTime doesn't seem to exist, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. But yes; as the saying goes, censorship is damage; the internet routes around it.
    - Melting_Harps 6y ago
      That's the hash to the .apk file, I just checked it again and it actually has more seeders on it then when I posted. Are you on any viable trackers? Even googling it takes you to the many search engines where its stats can be found: seeds: 33 leechers: 5.
      - a1369209993 6y ago
        Huh, doesn't seem to be in DHT for me, not really sure what going wrong there. Are you sure it's not marked private (aka is a corrupt or invalid infoblob)? And no, none of top three results on duckduckgo has a working tracker for it.
xiphias2 6y ago
I haven't used PopCornTime for a long time, as I have Netflix+HBO subscriptions, but it's time to reinstall it as a way to disobay the takedown.
- wp381640 6y ago
  You don't want Popcorn Time - you want Stremio
  - __float 6y ago
    Care to elaborate?
    - wp381640 6y ago
      supports commercial providers (Netflix, iTunes, Hulu) to find content, magnet links for webtorrent viewing, plugin architecture, no affiliate links or adware, and their github is currently live
  - dzhiurgis 6y ago
    It's WebTorrent for me when I need to watch something immediately.
  - Jnr 6y ago
    Stremio is centralized and has terrible license. No, thanks. While some of the things they are working on seem cool, overall I would not touch it because of the previously mentioned problems. Popcorn time really is a community project and it doesn't try to earn money by working on a tool that provides pirated content.
- Aachen 6y ago
  I tried getting Disney+ a week or two ago to watch a few things I still had on my list, but no support for my device and the website is completely broken in multiple browsers (I don't use dns blockers and one of the browsers is a purposefully clean Chromium). Not to mention HBO content, "get HBO" on the website just links to itself and I don't see any sign up page in Germany. I'm really sorry for the people that worked on the content, I tried to pay for it... Paying for ProtonVPN worked fine by the way.
KenoFischer 6y ago
So the DMCA requires identification of "material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity". It seems pretty clear that the requested content is not by itself infringing. Is anybody aware of case law on how the "subject of infringing activity" is to be read?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- maxlybbert 6y ago
  I’m sure the argument is that Napster- and Grokster-style contributory infringement is infringement. I have a hard time imagining source code enticing people to infringe copyright, but if the program encourages infringement, I suppose the repository is a logical target. I won’t predict whether the contributory infringement argument will win. I’m sure the law was written with direct infringement in mind, but I don’t think that rules out creative interpretations by itself. I believe the clearest approach would be for the MPA to not bother with a DMCA notice, and just sue the project directly. But if you can get what you want on the cheap, why not try? And I’m not sure a lawsuit against the project would do much good: even assuming the MPA were to get an injunction, they’d need to play whack-a-mole to track down anybody using the PopCornTime code.
  - KenoFischer 6y ago
    Right, I concur with the reasoning that contributory infringement could be argued against the developers, but I think the interesting questions is whether that reasoning can be extended to the "material" under the takedown section - particularly as written. If so that seems like the kinds of thing that could get ugly very quickly. E.g. are instructions on how to google for infringing material suddenly infringing?
    - maxlybbert 6y ago
      I understood that DMCA notice/counternotice procedure was meant to provide a streamlined process for simple cases, which could be migrated to an actual court if necessary. I don’t like seeing it stretched to cover cases that aren’t so simple.
que- 6y ago
only tested it years ago, can't be arsed with the gobshite one gets mainly from US.. media junk, like the food. but min this is back up, I will give it a swirl.
que- 6y ago
darn. lost message on signup.. well, only tested popcorn years ago. Since it was mainly American rubbish, like the food, I couldn't be arsed with it. But minute this is back up, I am grabbing it,
mullingitover 6y ago
Does this takedown affect anyone who forked the repo?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I believe takedowns usually cause forks to be deleted as well.
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    Looks like there are still hundreds of popcorn time derivatives floating around: https://github.com/search?q=popcorn+time&ref=opensearch https://github.com/search?q=popcorn+time&ref=opensearch
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      They’ll go after those too later, but that’s a manual process.
  - mirimir 6y ago
    Is there a way to do unlinked forks? Or is it impractical to obfuscate code?
    - Aachen 6y ago
      Yes, you can just upload it as an independent repository, just don't hit the fork button.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        They'll come after you anyways if they care. When Apple's iBoot code was put up they presumably scoured GitHub to find unlinked forks because those disappeared soon afterwards.
        mullingitover 6y ago
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
So the question really boils down to "Does the DMCA let you submit takedown notices for tools which aid infringement, even if the code itself is original and not an unauthorized copy of something else." IANAL, can anyone comment on whether the DMCA lets you do this? It's clear from the takedown notice submitted by the MPA that (a) they are alleging that PopCornTime aids copyright infringement, not that the code itself is a copy, however the counternotice from the devs just says that (b) the code itself is original, but doesn't address that it is used and configured to scrape torrent files. In short, though, I wouldn't hold my breath for PopCornTime. Napster and Limewire got taken down back in the day too for the same rationale.
- dillonmckay 6y ago
  Maybe they will be acquired by BestBuy, as well?
- KennethSRoberts 6y ago
  By that logic, Google is aiding infringement.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Depending on who you ask, they are or aren’t.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    It's all about "primary purpose". The getpopcorntime website clearly shows that its primary purpose is to link to torrents to be able to watch free copyrighted movies. On the contrary, Google goes to great lengths now to make it harder to find free copyrighted content, and in any case Google has an easy case for its legal use.
    - greglindahl 6y ago
      The DMCA law says nothing about contributory copyright infringement, only direct.
sam1r 6y ago
For those of you curious - you can still download Popcorn time directly on https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://get.popcorntime.app/ https://get.popcorntime.app/
- KennethSRoberts 6y ago
  And an archived copy of the repo: https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.co...
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Is this an actual, full archive?
    - inyorgroove 6y ago
      Does not look like it to me. Zip download failed, not sure you can git clone from that url.
      - akerro 6y ago
        https://i.imgur.com/xS7PLmP.png https://i.imgur.com/xS7PLmP.png works for me made you a copy https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeTXtu2U4z7m1yWwU2qco2sUQoxPh5tCKaL8WayaVHpPP https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeTXtu2U4z7m1yWwU2qco2sUQoxPh5...
  - NieDzejkob 6y ago
    As far as code repositories go, Software Heritage seems to be more reliable. In this case, there's a full snapshot from the beginning of April: https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/origin/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/directory/ https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/origin/https://g...
- baby 6y ago
  I would be careful btw, I remember there being different clones of popcorn time and who knows what you're executing on your computer. There's also SickChill and CouchPotato but I haven't tried them.
SpaceRaccoon 6y ago
This has happened before: https://lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/722 https://lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/722 Looks like they're trying again since Github was acquired by a big corp (Microsoft).
vajrapani666 6y ago
Git’s style of decentralization, still requires individual git servers no? Is there something like git, but based on magnet/torrent architecture?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  You can have multiple Git remotes or none at all. Unlike torrents it doesn’t help you with discovery of peers with mirrors, but other than that there’s probably a hundred copies of this repository sitting on people’s hard drives.
- yupyup54133 6y ago
  There is also dgit which is git with Tupelo for the distributed hash tables and Sia's skynet for the storage layer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684945
- donatj 6y ago
  Required? Not really. You can work without a central server, pulling from individuals machines over SFTP or SMB as we did for a few years in the early 2010s. It was always awkward and we moved to GitHub shortly before I left.
jijji 6y ago
next they will take down Reynolds Wrap because people can use it to smoke crack.
sabujp 6y ago
by that token duckduckgo should be taken down : https://duckduckgo.com/?q=watch+movies+online+free&ia=news https://duckduckgo.com/?q=watch+movies+online+free&ia=news . This is literally the only thing I use ddg for.
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
Thanks, I just learned about PopCornTime and will tell people about it
justapassenger 6y ago
I do think it makes sense (as, well, majority of people don’t use it to get free videos about how to install Linux), but it’s very very tricky balance, and each time they’re being pushed there should be a lot of discussion and scrutiny. Compare that to gun rights discussion. Apps like popcorntime are similar to assault weapons - cool tech, but not much legit legal reason for an average joe to own it. And they both make illegal activity much, much easier. Note - before someone says that I equal downloading movie to killing people. I don’t, but framework of legal thinking is similar.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  > Apps like popcorntime are similar to assault weapons All analogies breakdown under close scrutiny. What I don't understand is why people contiue to make analogies where none are required. The arguement against Popcorn Time is simple and straighforward: It is overwhelming used to circumvent copywrite / avoid paying for access to content. Whether anyone agrees with that argument or not is immaterial to my point: we don't need to compare the arguement against to anything else because its meaning is self-evident.
  - notechback 6y ago
    I would hope that any gun shop that sells products with the slogan "you can murder your spouse or neighbour with them, but you can also shoot animals or walls I guess".gets shut down ;)
  - sergiotapia 6y ago
    Analogies: clear sign of a person who can't defend their position.
jijji 6y ago
looks like its only the desktop version, which is available on wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.co...
gm 6y ago
This is why I regularly back up my github repos (via git clone --bare, then compress and archive). Mind you, I do nothing that even comes close to piracy, and the vast majority most of my repos are private, but it's a nightmare scenario to have your third party dictate when you have access to your source code and pop up surprises like this, whether by having some asshole try to extort you, or by the git repo having a data disaster with your repo.
- ayoisaiah 6y ago
  Why not create a mirror to Gitlab for example?
  - gm 6y ago
    Sure. I just prefer to do it where I have 100% of control and not merely hand off from one third party to another. But whatever works. The point is to not be caught off guard when a critical provider decides to take unilateral action against you and then you're at their mercy.
  - Aachen 6y ago
    For someone who casually wants to do this, Gitea is a lot lighter than gitlab to self host (and in my experience a breeze to install, but gitlab is probably the same).
    - Jnr 6y ago
      For some repositories that probably will be terminated on Github at some point, I have set up cloning on private Gitea instance. Disabled tree overwrite on some branches and have them backed up in case something else happens. So far I have never needed to use it, but it makes me feel better. And no, Gitlab is not as easy to maintain. You can probably set it up in Docker easily, but overall it has many moving parts and it requires more resource, while Gitea is just a single Golang binary and is a joy to use.
- fhennig 6y ago
  It says: "We have disabled public access to the repository." So I guess private access is still possible.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Hosting this kind of software on a US based server is just plain daft.
- loeg 6y ago
  It's a distributed VCS. All it takes to push it to another server is 'git push'.
  - Aachen 6y ago
    I think git remote add might be helpful before pushing :-)
dvdbloc 6y ago
Will projects like this switch to using Gitlab? Is there a reason they don’t?
- knocte 6y ago
  Looks like they were already using it as a backup: https://gitlab.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://gitlab.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop but last commit a year ago? I guess they will push latest commits soon
  - mirimir 6y ago
    Would GitLab resist DCMA better than GitHub?
    - rataata_jr 6y ago
      Alteast you can host your own gitlab.
- inyorgroove 6y ago
  I thought some variant of popcorntime was running their own gitlab server at some point because of this exact issue.
  - mirimir 6y ago
    There's still the risk of losing server hosting and/or network uplink. So it's prudent to use anonymously linked reverse proxies, which are ~disposable.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Copyrights on movies should not last longer than ‘copyrights’ of new drugs and technologies. 20 years?
- loeg 6y ago
  Patents? 20 years from filing. But copyright is different and usually associated with lifetime of the author. Disney has... bastardized this with aggressive lobbying.
orionblastar 6y ago
PopCornTime is a scraper, could one argue that it does not contain DMCA materials only accesses it like a Doom client accesses a Doom server or you build your own Doom server. The DMCA violation is on the Internet from servers that allow web scraping and hosts the files or P2P Torrent networks that don't store the file on the PCT software. I'm not a lawyer.
fulafel 6y ago
Good lesson abut host country related risk involved in using Github, in addition to the trade sanctions related ones.
x3blah 6y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20190402223528/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/issues http://web.archive.org/web/20190402223528/https://github.com... Looks like this was a fork from https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop which is still up
not2b 6y ago
Here is my guess: the people who filed the notice know it is bogus, and also know that to contest it, the PopcornTime authors would have to provide their real names and contact info, and the lawyers want that info so they can sue them for contributory copyright infringement.
throwbackThurs 6y ago
Smart move by Microsoft. Own GitHub, own open source.
Uhrheber 6y ago
Streisand effect. I may have heard of Popcorn Time before, but I never used it. Now I do.
pmlnr 6y ago
This is not fun. Github bending over every time is not good for us. The Instagram API thing was bad enough, now this. Hurray for M$.
esarbe 6y ago
The MPA is not even claiming copyright on any of the files in the repository; it just complaining about the "extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television programs that is occurring by virtue of the operation and further development of the Popcorn Time repositories". Then it links some files as kind of "proof". I'm not even sure what this is supposed to be.
EastSmith 6y ago
Can any blockchain hold blobs and more importantly how much it will cost? For example I know the Stellar blockchain can hold a small amount of text content called "memo" when making a transaction, but not sure if the "memo" field can be used _after_ a transaction is made. Probably it is a public field that can be read by anyone? I was always wondering what if we start putting content into a blockchain in general.
- everfree 6y ago
  IPFS does this. It doesn't have blockchain incentives though. Hosting is based on good will, like with torrents.
choward 6y ago
I have lost any remaining respect I had for GitHub. The whole point of git is to be decentralized and this is a great example if why that is important.
rs23296008n1 6y ago
Why is the entity that posted the takedown not identified? Seems like an important detail. (And today I discovered there's a bittorrent utility called popcorn time)
- progval 6y ago
  It is: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-01-MPA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0...
  - rs23296008n1 6y ago
    Thanks. Didn't see that[1]. So they included links to the "nasty" as files in the project. That seems like an unwise decision. [1] just click "publically posted".
throwaway483284 6y ago
If you are running a torrent site with "links" (.torrent files available) it's illegal. Torrent site is not hosting any videos, just links to them. This is exactly the same with popcorn time because they have providers in their code base. In case of the torrent site interface is a website, in case of popcorn time it's an desktop application. If they would remove providers (torrent sites/trackers with illegal content) from their code then DMCA would be invalid.
- mr_isomies 6y ago
  I don't know anything about copyright law, but that seems dubious. If I type the domain of a "torrent sites/trackers with illegal content" on HN, are they on the hook because it's in their database?
dilandau 6y ago
Imagine using githovel. Just host it yourself.
webreac 6y ago
I think this is a good opportunity to assess the commutment of github (microsoft) to support free software. I am not a lawyer, but it seems clear that this an abuse. I bet that the repository will become available again. IMHO the duration of the takedown is a good KPI of the trust deserved by github. More than 24 hours would be bad. Less than 4 hours would be good.
- hundchenkatze 6y ago
  From this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075667 it sounds like they're required to leave it down for 10 days.
api 6y ago
I've changed my view radically on mass piracy since what I believed in my youth, and I no longer agree with or have any sympathy with it. In the information age, most valuable labor is increasingly the creation of information. "Information wants to be free" means "labor wants to be free." In other words "I want other people's labor to be free," or "gimme free stuff and I don't care if anyone else can make a living." Then there is the effect of everything being free. In the Internet media world it helped lead to surveillance capitalism, since that's the only viable business model. Another viable model is propaganda. So if you want more of those things, by all means undermine simple overt non-sketchy paid business models.
lqet 6y ago
Most of the comments here seem to miss the crucial point: it doesn't matter whether the DMCA really applies here. Github is privately owned. If Microsoft wants to take down this repository (which they host for free), they are most certainly allowed to and do not even have to give a reason.
- wtallis 6y ago
  Whether the DMCA takedown procedure applies here is important, because it determines who to blame. If the procedure is valid to use in this way, then the MPA is who gets the blame for making it harder to get PopcornTime. But if it doesn't apply here and Microsoft is acting outside of that procedure and its protections, then legally and morally it's GitHub censoring a project because they don't like it. Which GitHub's Terms of Service let them do, but the ToS doesn't say the users have to be happy about it. (And it would also be the MPA abusing a legal procedure that was already written to favor them, which is certainly a topic fit for public debate.)
Hitton 6y ago
Related: The Hawaiian company "42 Ventures" has registered various piracy-related trademarks. The company currently owns the US word marks for YTS, Popcorn Time, and Terrarium, which it uses to target key piracy services. This recently resulted in the suspension of the Twitter account of a popular Popcorn Time fork.[0] https://torrentfreak.com/company-registers-yts-and-popcorn-time-trademarks-to-promote-legal-streaming-200407/ https://torrentfreak.com/company-registers-yts-and-popcorn-t...
bkovacev 6y ago
As a non US citizen I own: - HBO Go - Youtube Premium - Netflix - Amazon Prime However, content absolutely blows. I regularly go to cinemas, but there are not any tv shows in there. As of today I am going to cancel all of them and I know it's not much of a "blow" to their cash flow, but seriously, this is ridiculous. They kill the only platform that lets me watch content that's not available for me otherwise and that I would have gladly pay for if it was available. Popcorn time had an amazing support for streaming directly to TV, which was my main use case. I have a desktop computer in a separate room and I definitely do not plan on drilling my walls to push an HDMI cable through them. I guess it's time for Plex.
- wurst_case 6y ago
  Try streamio
- thefunnyman 6y ago
  Plex with something like Sonarr set up is a bit of a hassle to configure but generally works pretty well for this in my experience. I agree though, it used to be great when you could pay $10 a month for Netflix and it actually had most content you wanted. Now you pay more than that to three or four services and still don’t get everything. I wish the film industry would come up with something like what Spotify did for music and what Steam did for video games. Make your content easily available legally for a reasonable fee and piracy rates will naturally go down.
gorgoiler 6y ago
Popcorn Time, at least the last time I was brave enough to use it, was breathtaking. It was like having a cheat mode for TV. It looked great. It had absolutely all the content one could possibly want. I’d love to know more about the creators. In the end kicking that hornets nest wasn’t worth the risk of having the book thrown at us.
- dna_polymerase 6y ago
  I once read a good long-form article about him, but I can't find it now. Check this out though, basically, a webdev from Argentina, fed up with distribution of movies to his country: https://www.dn.no/magasinet/popcorn-time/spotify/federico-abad/pirate-bay/inside-popcorn-time-the-worlds-fastest-growing-piracy-site/1-1-5453911 https://www.dn.no/magasinet/popcorn-time/spotify/federico-ab...
crad 6y ago
Looks like they got shutdown on Twitter as well: https://twitter.com/popcorntimetv https://twitter.com/popcorntimetv

519 points by sandes 6y ago

The notice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-01-MPA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0... The counternotice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-04-MPA-counternotice.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0...

6nf 6y ago
Since there's a counter notice, I guess Github will put it back up now? That's the normal DMCA process I think?
- CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
  Yes, but the DMCA requires them to wait at least 10 business days first. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#g_2_C https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#g_2_C
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Wtf? That’s insane. I can just randomly DDOS projects by submitting DMCA notices? Edit: Just realized there’s nothing distributed about it.
    - CKN23-ARIN 6y ago
      False DMCA notices are, in theory, perjury, but in practice, yes.
      - redwall_hp 6y ago
        Have we ever seen a media company prosecuted for perjury, despite copious evidence that they constantly misuse DMCA takedowns to do exactly that?
        monocasa 6y ago
        Nope.
        sneak 6y ago
        Not once, no.
        downerending 6y ago
        Not sure anyone ever gets prosecuted for perjury. It's the norm in divorce cases, for example.
        saagarjha 6y ago
        Well there was the contempt of court and all with Bill Clinton…
        monocasa 6y ago
        And the amount of times I've seen a cop perjure themselves is unreal. We know that our former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper perjured himself before congress with impunity as well. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clappers-perjury-dc-made-men-dont-get-charged-lying-congress-jonathan-turley-column/1045991001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...
        downerending 6y ago
        Probably shouldn't drip gasoline on this smoldering dumpster fire, but pretty much anyone at a high political level that testifies "I can't remember" is probably committing perjury, yes. Oh well. https://www.newsweek.com/ken-starr-says-he-almost-charged-hillary-clinton-perjury-1117125 https://www.newsweek.com/ken-starr-says-he-almost-charged-hi...
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      Out of touch politicians coming up with tech policy in the 90s. Tada!
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      Presumably, you'd have to succeed in that notice leading to a takedown. The 10 day waiting period only presumably kicked in when GitHub decided the DMCA was valid and actionable.
      - URSpider94 6y ago
        No, Github has no discretion in this process. Their only job is to follow the policy to the letter: provide the notice to the presumed offender and disable content, then forward the counter-notice to the original complainant and re-enable the content in 10 days.
        KenoFischer 6y ago
        GitHub can decide a takedown notice is facially invalid. Of course if it's later found that they're wrong by a court of competent jurisdiction, they'd be in trouble, so they're likely to be extremely conservative in making this determination.
        URSpider94 6y ago
        I'm curious to know whether platforms ever even bother to evaluate takedowns, beyond the most basic fact-checking (e.g. the item to be taken down is spelled properly). It seems like one of those cases where the risk of getting it wrong outweighs the benefit of trying to discriminate between good and bad requests.
        colejohnson66 6y ago
        Doesn’t Google deny DMCA requests sometimes?
        duskwuff 6y ago
        Sometimes. Not as often as they should, but they will at least reject keyword-based delisting requests for obviously innocent web properties like Wikipedia or IMDB (typically because they have an page about the movie that some overzealous "copyright defense" outfit is trying to protect).
    - khun533 6y ago
      This is why you should never host your open source project on a US server. You're one DMCA notice away from being destroyed, needing a lawyer to counter claim properly, etc. This is insanity. Git hosted in Europe: https://codeberg.org/ https://codeberg.org/ Anyone know other git hosts outside the US? pls reply
      - lazyjones 6y ago
        Perhaps you're right, but perhaps DMCA takedowns are a preferred alternative to what the MPAA does in other situations, like the Kim Dotcom raid in NZ.
        crankylinuxuser 6y ago
        Other areas that could be used would be like Tor and IPFS. Tor is anti-censorship but can be a SPOF. IPFS provides full identity of machine to the network (internal and external IPs), but is highly redundant and resistant to single attacks. And IPFS refuses to mainline work for Tor/I2P... So it still spits out every adapter to the world. Yes, even your internal non-routable addresses.
      - i_d_rather_read 6y ago
        > This is why you should never host your open source project on a US server. You're one DMCA notice away from being destroyed, needing a lawyer to counter claim properly, etc. This is an excellent takeaway that should be upvoted.
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      Yes, you can, and there's nothing the victim can do about it. Many service providers won't even give you the details of the person who submitted the notice so you can sue them (Google, for example).
  - nullc 6y ago
    Require isn't exactly the right word. If they don't they lose the DMCA safe harbor. If it's really obviously not an infringement there isn't much harm in that. This is the reason that you can't use weak (or even unambiguous!) copyright infringement to take down popular sites-- their hosts will just forego the safe harbor, perhaps in exchange for indemnification. Private parties? No such luck.
- ben509 6y ago
  No, the MPAA is going to sue them now. To file a counter notice, they must have a "good faith" reason for their dispute. The MPAA's claim is that Popcorn is used for piracy. IANAL and don't know the case law, so I don't know if it has merit. But a "good faith" dispute has to address the claim. Their dispute is arguing that they own the code. The MPAA never claimed they don't, that's simply not responding to the substance of their argument. They should really get an attorney. FFS, at least read the counter notice guidelines; I think they believe they're dealing with Github customer support.
  - gpm 6y ago
    They have a good faith reason for the counter notice, DMCA notices don't cover contributory copyright infringement. The MPAA committed perjury by submitting this notice. The MPAA still might still sue them though, DMCA notices don't cover it but copyright law does. IANAL, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah,
  - loeg 6y ago
    You're confusing the broader DMCA law and DMCA copyright violation takedown notices specifically. The DMCA copyright takedown notice is to assert to a common provider (Github) that your copyrighted work is currently copied on their platform (Github). As a result, the platform is obliged to immediately assume guilt on the part of their user and take down the content, regardless of evidence. There was no MPA-owned copyrighted material in the repository the DMCA takedown notice was invoked on. The popcorn developers own the copyright to their code, and no MPA media assets are in the Github repository. The MPA has no copyright claim against the source code on Github. The MPA could sue the developers for any reason they like, but that is a very different process from DMCA takedown notices. This was an abuse of the DMCA takedown process and the counternotice is wholly correct.
    - ben509 6y ago
      I'm not confusing it, perhaps MPAA is. And if Popcorn had made your point, then they'd have made a good faith counter notice. You're directly addressing the takedown notice by disputing its basis in law. But a judge can't work off what a party ought to say, they have to adjudicate what they do say.
wp381640 6y ago
Notable that Netflix only joined the MPA a year ago and are part of this notice. Welcome to the club.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple and Amazon join in to these kinds of things soon as well :/
- syshum 6y ago
  It is always sad when companies that were once small and Anti-Establishment grow to become the establishment and use their new size and power to stomp on people.... I remember when the MPAA (as it was known then) was trying to shut down the little known service that was attempting to rent DVD's via mail....
FiloSottile 6y ago
Note how that's not a DMCA notice in the usual sense ("we own the IP of content distributed on your platform"), but a "strongly worded letter" that mentions the DMCA but just says "we'd like your assistance in stopping this illegal activity". At least it's not run-of-the-mill DMCA abuse. It's interesting that GitHub decided to process it like a DMCA notice, unclear to me if they had to, and even less clear if the counter-notice is meaningful.
- adjkant 6y ago
  This is one of those cases where I bet Github's ownership is in play. Github the company may not care about what the MPA thinks of them and could consider fighting this. Microsoft I'm sure have at least some business linked to the film industry and do not want to poke the bear.
- jhauris 6y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I believe this is an actual DMCA notice. It has all the required components[0] of one. Is there something I'm missing? What makes this not a DMCA notice? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Notice_from_copyright_owner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_...
  - wtallis 6y ago
    It's not at all clear that they have identified anything on GitHub that is a copyright infringement. They've correctly claimed that the software is being used elsewhere to accomplish infringement, but the URLs they identified aren't reproductions or derivative works of any movies.

Jaxkr 6y ago

Very interesting. The repository does not contain any copyrighted content, but it unabashedly promotes copyright violation.

saagarjha 6y ago
The precedent the notice cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,..., specifically the opinion provided: > We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  What an obscene abuse of power that ruling is. Are gun shops liable for the mass shootings that take place by people that bought guns there? Didn't think so. Going after the tool-makers is right out of the authoritarian playbook.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    I think there's a valid distinction between a product that can be misused but has a legitimate use, and a product solely built to enable illegal activity. If the business knows their product isn't useful for anything but crime, the only reason they're in business is the crime. VLC Media Player is a multi-use video player sometimes used to play pirated videos. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file transfer protocol designed to transfer and distribute large files efficiently. Popcorn Time is explicitly built to find and play illegally shared content.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      But that's not what Grokster said. It was to the effect that if you promote your service for piracy then you're liable even if it does have non-infringing uses. The result has, ironically, been quite an inconvenience for copyright holders, because it meant that the developers of piracy-enabling services merely stopped promoting them as such even though nothing about the technology was any different, which made it harder to shut them down because of the optics. If you have someone producing a mixed-use technology but actively promoting it for infringement then it's easier to convince a judge that they're the bad guys. Now that any company with lawyers doesn't do that anymore, it's a lot harder to paint that picture. Technology-wise there isn't much in Popcorn Time that wouldn't still be there in a legitimate YouTube competitor. And this gets double complicated when it's software rather than a service because (presumably) the liability for promoting infringement would be on the people doing the promoting, but what does that mean for the software? What happens if somebody else who isn't promoting infringement starts distributing a version of the same code? Is it different than some independent code which does exactly the same thing?

Aloha 6y ago

Can you use the DMCA in this way?

greglindahl 6y ago
The DMCA is easy to abuse without any consequences. There's no known case of anyone ever being legally sanctioned for filing a DMCA takedown, even when it involved lies such as assertions of copyright ownership that were clearly untrue.
- ikeboy 6y ago
  Depends on what your criteria is. Google settled for 25k with someone who submitted fake notices to YouTube. Given that most litigation ends before a decision, it's likely there's been other private settlements. More broadly than just DMCA, but here's a partial list of successful cases: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4226764/dynamic-designs-distribution-incorporated-v-nalin-manufacturing-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4226764/dynamic-designs... awarded declaratory judgement and 37k in attorney fees for a false claim made to eBay (see docket 38) >On November 11, 2011, Mr. Nalin filed a “VeRO complaint with eBay asserting that the Dynamic Designs speaker adapter infringed Nalin’s trademark rights.” https://courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/appellate/unreportedopinions/2017/2556s15.pdf https://courts.state.md.us/sites/default/files/import/appell... 150k jury award of punitive damages, reduced by appeals court to 75k, for a false Amazon complaint of counterfeiting https://casetext.com/case/alexander-binzel-corporation-v-nu-tecsys-corporation https://casetext.com/case/alexander-binzel-corporation-v-nu-... really old case not involving the Internet, but a $4 million jury award reduced by the district court to $2.34 million+interest for false claims of counterfeiting
  - greglindahl 6y ago
    Given the large number of attempts at legal sanctions which have all failed, I'm not so sure that an out-of-court settlement is that interesting. So yes, that's what I think is important. Edit: I'm having a hard time keeping up with your edits, can you stop editing at some point? You've added 3 links about counterfitting. The DMCA only applies to copyrights, not trademarks or patents.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

> Popcorn Software is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player.

duemti 6y ago
"Use it as it suits you on your own responsibility." DMCA abuse.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Why did you reply to me? I literally just copied and pasted the project description (the comment section was empty when I posted it, and I didn't even know what Popcorn Time is...), and I didn't state any position on DMCA (to set the records straight, I'm not a fan of DMCA). Please do not blindly assume other people's positions based on what they didn't say. Thanks. BTW, I didn't downvote your comment.

bluedino 6y ago

Well duh.

kalium-xyz 6y ago

This is clear DMCA abuse, the popcorn time repository itself does not contain copyrighted content. This is why using a centralized closed source service managed by a tech conglomerate as the “hub” of our open source movement might not always be for the best

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Without seeing the attachments, it looks like at bare minimum, examples of copyrighted content were shown in their screenshots. But the main issue is that links to piracy was built in, such that a user could immediately download this and begin pirating content. Movie studios are most concerned that this could even lead to people pirating content without realizing that they're doing something illegal. Ultimately, choosing a centralized provider versus elsewhere doesn't have a lot of impact. The MPAA can send notices to your hosting provider, your domain registrar, your internet service provider, or ultimately, get the police to raid your house/office and confiscate your personal machines. The idea that the Internet exists outside of the real physical world, and you can just do whatever you want is a fantasy sold by science fiction, but exactly that: A fantasy.
- ddevault 6y ago
  This is some bootlicking nonsense. Screw the MPAA. How can anyone seriously defend them? We've known they were the bad guy for decades. The MPAA is a multi-billion dollar bully, that's the long and short of it. PopcornTime has never itself been guilty of copyright violation, even if its users have been, and the MPAA ought to know better. Even if they were going after it for showing copyrighted posters or frames in their screenshots, that's frivolous as hell and clearly covered by fair use. What they're really doing is bullying: they don't like what this application does, even though they know it's legal, so they'll utilize an broken law which is absolutely ripe for one-sided abuse by copyright holders to screw the little guy, knowing there's no oversight and will be no reprecussions for their behavior. Copyright must be abolished. The fact that anything created today will never enter the public domain within any of our lifetimes proves that the system has failed. We have an obligation to exercise civil disobedience to protest the broken system. I will shed no tears for billionares caught up in the flack. They never shed a tear for the tens of thousands of people they screwed with expensive lawsuits, nor the billions they screwed out of their rightful inheritance of the collective works of humanity.

Endlessly 6y ago

What is PopCornTime? It is the “Netflix” of pirated movies, learn more here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> What is PopCornTime? b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41 > I haven't used PopCornTime for a long time, as I have Netflix+HBO subscriptions, but it's time to reinstall it as a way to disobay the takedown. > only tested it years ago, can't be arsed with the gobshite one gets mainly from US.. media junk, like the food. but min this is back up, I will give it a swirl. When will they learn a p2p system/network can never truly be taken down so long as Human's have personal agency. Furthermore, Github was always a central point of failure, made even more vulnerable due to its purchase from M$. This only further proves why that is. > Out of touch politicians coming up with tech policy in the 90s. Tada! This is mere optics and one motivated by self-praise as it doesn't really work. But I'm glad some carry on the spirit of Gene Kan.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > > What is PopCornTime? > b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41 magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b7861e52eda1961101b605593fd2b4e8c2210e41&dn=PopCornTime doesn't seem to exist, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. But yes; as the saying goes, censorship is damage; the internet routes around it.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    That's the hash to the .apk file, I just checked it again and it actually has more seeders on it then when I posted. Are you on any viable trackers? Even googling it takes you to the many search engines where its stats can be found: seeds: 33 leechers: 5.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      Huh, doesn't seem to be in DHT for me, not really sure what going wrong there. Are you sure it's not marked private (aka is a corrupt or invalid infoblob)? And no, none of top three results on duckduckgo has a working tracker for it.

xiphias2 6y ago

I haven't used PopCornTime for a long time, as I have Netflix+HBO subscriptions, but it's time to reinstall it as a way to disobay the takedown.

wp381640 6y ago
You don't want Popcorn Time - you want Stremio
- __float 6y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - wp381640 6y ago
    supports commercial providers (Netflix, iTunes, Hulu) to find content, magnet links for webtorrent viewing, plugin architecture, no affiliate links or adware, and their github is currently live
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  It's WebTorrent for me when I need to watch something immediately.
- Jnr 6y ago
  Stremio is centralized and has terrible license. No, thanks. While some of the things they are working on seem cool, overall I would not touch it because of the previously mentioned problems. Popcorn time really is a community project and it doesn't try to earn money by working on a tool that provides pirated content.
Aachen 6y ago
I tried getting Disney+ a week or two ago to watch a few things I still had on my list, but no support for my device and the website is completely broken in multiple browsers (I don't use dns blockers and one of the browsers is a purposefully clean Chromium). Not to mention HBO content, "get HBO" on the website just links to itself and I don't see any sign up page in Germany. I'm really sorry for the people that worked on the content, I tried to pay for it... Paying for ProtonVPN worked fine by the way.

KenoFischer 6y ago

So the DMCA requires identification of "material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity". It seems pretty clear that the requested content is not by itself infringing. Is anybody aware of case law on how the "subject of infringing activity" is to be read?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
maxlybbert 6y ago
I’m sure the argument is that Napster- and Grokster-style contributory infringement is infringement. I have a hard time imagining source code enticing people to infringe copyright, but if the program encourages infringement, I suppose the repository is a logical target. I won’t predict whether the contributory infringement argument will win. I’m sure the law was written with direct infringement in mind, but I don’t think that rules out creative interpretations by itself. I believe the clearest approach would be for the MPA to not bother with a DMCA notice, and just sue the project directly. But if you can get what you want on the cheap, why not try? And I’m not sure a lawsuit against the project would do much good: even assuming the MPA were to get an injunction, they’d need to play whack-a-mole to track down anybody using the PopCornTime code.
- KenoFischer 6y ago
  Right, I concur with the reasoning that contributory infringement could be argued against the developers, but I think the interesting questions is whether that reasoning can be extended to the "material" under the takedown section - particularly as written. If so that seems like the kinds of thing that could get ugly very quickly. E.g. are instructions on how to google for infringing material suddenly infringing?
  - maxlybbert 6y ago
    I understood that DMCA notice/counternotice procedure was meant to provide a streamlined process for simple cases, which could be migrated to an actual court if necessary. I don’t like seeing it stretched to cover cases that aren’t so simple.

que- 6y ago

only tested it years ago, can't be arsed with the gobshite one gets mainly from US.. media junk, like the food. but min this is back up, I will give it a swirl.

que- 6y ago

darn. lost message on signup.. well, only tested popcorn years ago. Since it was mainly American rubbish, like the food, I couldn't be arsed with it. But minute this is back up, I am grabbing it,

mullingitover 6y ago

Does this takedown affect anyone who forked the repo?

saagarjha 6y ago
I believe takedowns usually cause forks to be deleted as well.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  Looks like there are still hundreds of popcorn time derivatives floating around: https://github.com/search?q=popcorn+time&ref=opensearch https://github.com/search?q=popcorn+time&ref=opensearch
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    They’ll go after those too later, but that’s a manual process.
- mirimir 6y ago
  Is there a way to do unlinked forks? Or is it impractical to obfuscate code?
  - Aachen 6y ago
    Yes, you can just upload it as an independent repository, just don't hit the fork button.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      They'll come after you anyways if they care. When Apple's iBoot code was put up they presumably scoured GitHub to find unlinked forks because those disappeared soon afterwards.
      - mullingitover 6y ago

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

So the question really boils down to "Does the DMCA let you submit takedown notices for tools which aid infringement, even if the code itself is original and not an unauthorized copy of something else." IANAL, can anyone comment on whether the DMCA lets you do this? It's clear from the takedown notice submitted by the MPA that (a) they are alleging that PopCornTime aids copyright infringement, not that the code itself is a copy, however the counternotice from the devs just says that (b) the code itself is original, but doesn't address that it is used and configured to scrape torrent files. In short, though, I wouldn't hold my breath for PopCornTime. Napster and Limewire got taken down back in the day too for the same rationale.

dillonmckay 6y ago
Maybe they will be acquired by BestBuy, as well?
KennethSRoberts 6y ago
By that logic, Google is aiding infringement.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Depending on who you ask, they are or aren’t.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  It's all about "primary purpose". The getpopcorntime website clearly shows that its primary purpose is to link to torrents to be able to watch free copyrighted movies. On the contrary, Google goes to great lengths now to make it harder to find free copyrighted content, and in any case Google has an easy case for its legal use.
  - greglindahl 6y ago
    The DMCA law says nothing about contributory copyright infringement, only direct.

sam1r 6y ago

For those of you curious - you can still download Popcorn time directly on https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://get.popcorntime.app/ https://get.popcorntime.app/

KennethSRoberts 6y ago
And an archived copy of the repo: https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.co...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Is this an actual, full archive?
  - inyorgroove 6y ago
    Does not look like it to me. Zip download failed, not sure you can git clone from that url.
    - akerro 6y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/xS7PLmP.png https://i.imgur.com/xS7PLmP.png works for me made you a copy https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeTXtu2U4z7m1yWwU2qco2sUQoxPh5tCKaL8WayaVHpPP https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmeTXtu2U4z7m1yWwU2qco2sUQoxPh5...
- NieDzejkob 6y ago
  As far as code repositories go, Software Heritage seems to be more reliable. In this case, there's a full snapshot from the beginning of April: https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/origin/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/directory/ https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/origin/https://g...
baby 6y ago
I would be careful btw, I remember there being different clones of popcorn time and who knows what you're executing on your computer. There's also SickChill and CouchPotato but I haven't tried them.

SpaceRaccoon 6y ago

This has happened before: https://lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/722 https://lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/722 Looks like they're trying again since Github was acquired by a big corp (Microsoft).

vajrapani666 6y ago

Git’s style of decentralization, still requires individual git servers no? Is there something like git, but based on magnet/torrent architecture?

saagarjha 6y ago
You can have multiple Git remotes or none at all. Unlike torrents it doesn’t help you with discovery of peers with mirrors, but other than that there’s probably a hundred copies of this repository sitting on people’s hard drives.
yupyup54133 6y ago
There is also dgit which is git with Tupelo for the distributed hash tables and Sia's skynet for the storage layer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22684945
donatj 6y ago
Required? Not really. You can work without a central server, pulling from individuals machines over SFTP or SMB as we did for a few years in the early 2010s. It was always awkward and we moved to GitHub shortly before I left.

jijji 6y ago

next they will take down Reynolds Wrap because people can use it to smoke crack.

sabujp 6y ago

by that token duckduckgo should be taken down : https://duckduckgo.com/?q=watch+movies+online+free&ia=news https://duckduckgo.com/?q=watch+movies+online+free&ia=news . This is literally the only thing I use ddg for.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

Thanks, I just learned about PopCornTime and will tell people about it

justapassenger 6y ago

I do think it makes sense (as, well, majority of people don’t use it to get free videos about how to install Linux), but it’s very very tricky balance, and each time they’re being pushed there should be a lot of discussion and scrutiny. Compare that to gun rights discussion. Apps like popcorntime are similar to assault weapons - cool tech, but not much legit legal reason for an average joe to own it. And they both make illegal activity much, much easier. Note - before someone says that I equal downloading movie to killing people. I don’t, but framework of legal thinking is similar.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> Apps like popcorntime are similar to assault weapons All analogies breakdown under close scrutiny. What I don't understand is why people contiue to make analogies where none are required. The arguement against Popcorn Time is simple and straighforward: It is overwhelming used to circumvent copywrite / avoid paying for access to content. Whether anyone agrees with that argument or not is immaterial to my point: we don't need to compare the arguement against to anything else because its meaning is self-evident.
- notechback 6y ago
  I would hope that any gun shop that sells products with the slogan "you can murder your spouse or neighbour with them, but you can also shoot animals or walls I guess".gets shut down ;)
- sergiotapia 6y ago
  Analogies: clear sign of a person who can't defend their position.

jijji 6y ago

looks like its only the desktop version, which is available on wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://web.archive.org/web/20200411155357/https://github.co...

gm 6y ago

This is why I regularly back up my github repos (via git clone --bare, then compress and archive). Mind you, I do nothing that even comes close to piracy, and the vast majority most of my repos are private, but it's a nightmare scenario to have your third party dictate when you have access to your source code and pop up surprises like this, whether by having some asshole try to extort you, or by the git repo having a data disaster with your repo.

ayoisaiah 6y ago
Why not create a mirror to Gitlab for example?
- gm 6y ago
  Sure. I just prefer to do it where I have 100% of control and not merely hand off from one third party to another. But whatever works. The point is to not be caught off guard when a critical provider decides to take unilateral action against you and then you're at their mercy.
- Aachen 6y ago
  For someone who casually wants to do this, Gitea is a lot lighter than gitlab to self host (and in my experience a breeze to install, but gitlab is probably the same).
  - Jnr 6y ago
    For some repositories that probably will be terminated on Github at some point, I have set up cloning on private Gitea instance. Disabled tree overwrite on some branches and have them backed up in case something else happens. So far I have never needed to use it, but it makes me feel better. And no, Gitlab is not as easy to maintain. You can probably set it up in Docker easily, but overall it has many moving parts and it requires more resource, while Gitea is just a single Golang binary and is a joy to use.
fhennig 6y ago
It says: "We have disabled public access to the repository." So I guess private access is still possible.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Hosting this kind of software on a US based server is just plain daft.

loeg 6y ago
It's a distributed VCS. All it takes to push it to another server is 'git push'.
- Aachen 6y ago
  I think git remote add might be helpful before pushing :-)

dvdbloc 6y ago

Will projects like this switch to using Gitlab? Is there a reason they don’t?

knocte 6y ago
Looks like they were already using it as a backup: https://gitlab.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop https://gitlab.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop but last commit a year ago? I guess they will push latest commits soon
- mirimir 6y ago
  Would GitLab resist DCMA better than GitHub?
  - rataata_jr 6y ago
    Alteast you can host your own gitlab.
inyorgroove 6y ago
I thought some variant of popcorntime was running their own gitlab server at some point because of this exact issue.
- mirimir 6y ago
  There's still the risk of losing server hosting and/or network uplink. So it's prudent to use anonymously linked reverse proxies, which are ~disposable.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Copyrights on movies should not last longer than ‘copyrights’ of new drugs and technologies. 20 years?

loeg 6y ago
Patents? 20 years from filing. But copyright is different and usually associated with lifetime of the author. Disney has... bastardized this with aggressive lobbying.

orionblastar 6y ago

PopCornTime is a scraper, could one argue that it does not contain DMCA materials only accesses it like a Doom client accesses a Doom server or you build your own Doom server. The DMCA violation is on the Internet from servers that allow web scraping and hosts the files or P2P Torrent networks that don't store the file on the PCT software. I'm not a lawyer.

fulafel 6y ago

Good lesson abut host country related risk involved in using Github, in addition to the trade sanctions related ones.

x3blah 6y ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20190402223528/https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/issues http://web.archive.org/web/20190402223528/https://github.com... Looks like this was a fork from https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop which is still up

not2b 6y ago

Here is my guess: the people who filed the notice know it is bogus, and also know that to contest it, the PopcornTime authors would have to provide their real names and contact info, and the lawyers want that info so they can sue them for contributory copyright infringement.

throwbackThurs 6y ago

Smart move by Microsoft. Own GitHub, own open source.

Uhrheber 6y ago

Streisand effect. I may have heard of Popcorn Time before, but I never used it. Now I do.

pmlnr 6y ago

This is not fun. Github bending over every time is not good for us. The Instagram API thing was bad enough, now this. Hurray for M$.

esarbe 6y ago

The MPA is not even claiming copyright on any of the files in the repository; it just complaining about the "extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television programs that is occurring by virtue of the operation and further development of the Popcorn Time repositories". Then it links some files as kind of "proof". I'm not even sure what this is supposed to be.

EastSmith 6y ago

Can any blockchain hold blobs and more importantly how much it will cost? For example I know the Stellar blockchain can hold a small amount of text content called "memo" when making a transaction, but not sure if the "memo" field can be used _after_ a transaction is made. Probably it is a public field that can be read by anyone? I was always wondering what if we start putting content into a blockchain in general.

everfree 6y ago
IPFS does this. It doesn't have blockchain incentives though. Hosting is based on good will, like with torrents.

choward 6y ago

I have lost any remaining respect I had for GitHub. The whole point of git is to be decentralized and this is a great example if why that is important.

rs23296008n1 6y ago

Why is the entity that posted the takedown not identified? Seems like an important detail. (And today I discovered there's a bittorrent utility called popcorn time)

progval 6y ago
It is: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-01-MPA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0...
- rs23296008n1 6y ago
  Thanks. Didn't see that[1]. So they included links to the "nasty" as files in the project. That seems like an unwise decision. [1] just click "publically posted".

throwaway483284 6y ago

If you are running a torrent site with "links" (.torrent files available) it's illegal. Torrent site is not hosting any videos, just links to them. This is exactly the same with popcorn time because they have providers in their code base. In case of the torrent site interface is a website, in case of popcorn time it's an desktop application. If they would remove providers (torrent sites/trackers with illegal content) from their code then DMCA would be invalid.

mr_isomies 6y ago
I don't know anything about copyright law, but that seems dubious. If I type the domain of a "torrent sites/trackers with illegal content" on HN, are they on the hook because it's in their database?

dilandau 6y ago

Imagine using githovel. Just host it yourself.

webreac 6y ago

I think this is a good opportunity to assess the commutment of github (microsoft) to support free software. I am not a lawyer, but it seems clear that this an abuse. I bet that the repository will become available again. IMHO the duration of the takedown is a good KPI of the trust deserved by github. More than 24 hours would be bad. Less than 4 hours would be good.

hundchenkatze 6y ago
From this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075667 it sounds like they're required to leave it down for 10 days.

api 6y ago

I've changed my view radically on mass piracy since what I believed in my youth, and I no longer agree with or have any sympathy with it. In the information age, most valuable labor is increasingly the creation of information. "Information wants to be free" means "labor wants to be free." In other words "I want other people's labor to be free," or "gimme free stuff and I don't care if anyone else can make a living." Then there is the effect of everything being free. In the Internet media world it helped lead to surveillance capitalism, since that's the only viable business model. Another viable model is propaganda. So if you want more of those things, by all means undermine simple overt non-sketchy paid business models.

lqet 6y ago

Most of the comments here seem to miss the crucial point: it doesn't matter whether the DMCA really applies here. Github is privately owned. If Microsoft wants to take down this repository (which they host for free), they are most certainly allowed to and do not even have to give a reason.

wtallis 6y ago
Whether the DMCA takedown procedure applies here is important, because it determines who to blame. If the procedure is valid to use in this way, then the MPA is who gets the blame for making it harder to get PopcornTime. But if it doesn't apply here and Microsoft is acting outside of that procedure and its protections, then legally and morally it's GitHub censoring a project because they don't like it. Which GitHub's Terms of Service let them do, but the ToS doesn't say the users have to be happy about it. (And it would also be the MPA abusing a legal procedure that was already written to favor them, which is certainly a topic fit for public debate.)

Hitton 6y ago

Related: The Hawaiian company "42 Ventures" has registered various piracy-related trademarks. The company currently owns the US word marks for YTS, Popcorn Time, and Terrarium, which it uses to target key piracy services. This recently resulted in the suspension of the Twitter account of a popular Popcorn Time fork.[0] https://torrentfreak.com/company-registers-yts-and-popcorn-time-trademarks-to-promote-legal-streaming-200407/ https://torrentfreak.com/company-registers-yts-and-popcorn-t...

bkovacev 6y ago

As a non US citizen I own: - HBO Go - Youtube Premium - Netflix - Amazon Prime However, content absolutely blows. I regularly go to cinemas, but there are not any tv shows in there. As of today I am going to cancel all of them and I know it's not much of a "blow" to their cash flow, but seriously, this is ridiculous. They kill the only platform that lets me watch content that's not available for me otherwise and that I would have gladly pay for if it was available. Popcorn time had an amazing support for streaming directly to TV, which was my main use case. I have a desktop computer in a separate room and I definitely do not plan on drilling my walls to push an HDMI cable through them. I guess it's time for Plex.

wurst_case 6y ago
Try streamio
thefunnyman 6y ago
Plex with something like Sonarr set up is a bit of a hassle to configure but generally works pretty well for this in my experience. I agree though, it used to be great when you could pay $10 a month for Netflix and it actually had most content you wanted. Now you pay more than that to three or four services and still don’t get everything. I wish the film industry would come up with something like what Spotify did for music and what Steam did for video games. Make your content easily available legally for a reasonable fee and piracy rates will naturally go down.

gorgoiler 6y ago

Popcorn Time, at least the last time I was brave enough to use it, was breathtaking. It was like having a cheat mode for TV. It looked great. It had absolutely all the content one could possibly want. I’d love to know more about the creators. In the end kicking that hornets nest wasn’t worth the risk of having the book thrown at us.

dna_polymerase 6y ago
I once read a good long-form article about him, but I can't find it now. Check this out though, basically, a webdev from Argentina, fed up with distribution of movies to his country: https://www.dn.no/magasinet/popcorn-time/spotify/federico-abad/pirate-bay/inside-popcorn-time-the-worlds-fastest-growing-piracy-site/1-1-5453911 https://www.dn.no/magasinet/popcorn-time/spotify/federico-ab...

crad 6y ago

Looks like they got shutdown on Twitter as well: https://twitter.com/popcorntimetv https://twitter.com/popcorntimetv