21 ms·

Popcorn Time Is So Good at Movie Piracy, It’s Scary

624 points by caiobegotti 13y ago

bruceb 13y ago
Sometime sites/apps/people that are legally questionable are too high profile for their own good. This might soon the case with Popcorn Time. It is like being The Pirate Bay, Joaquín “El Chapo" Guzman, Kim Dotcom, etc big target on your back.
adamnemecek 13y ago
It's pretty clever that all the movies shown in the screenshot of the app (at http://getpopcornti.me http://getpopcornti.me) are public domain.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Was thinking that myself. Good way to avoid the claim that they're advertising watching movies that can't possibly be legal.
- kilian 13y ago
  It had recent movies when they first released the website: https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-time.github.io/commit/33edf98d047a686b611f50551c6786a31b3a2b6b https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-time.github.io/commi... Someone must've suggested it would probably be better to not blatantly promote piracy ;)
- sroerick 13y ago
  I wish there was actually a feature to show only public domain or CC movies.
  - Springtime 13y ago
    I agree, although the quality of PD films is generally mediocre from everything I've seen. Seems mostly due to companies not bothering to perform better transfers and clean-ups as it's not very profitable.
    - sroerick 13y ago
      Yeah. I'm with you there. Production quality, too. One of the hardest parts of trying to boycott conventional Hollywood culture is making the aesthetic leap to public domain.
kosei 13y ago
Reminds me of the old Gabe Newell (Valve founder) quote: "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem... If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
- greyskull 13y ago
  A similar quote came out of Google recently: http://torrentfreak.com/google-piracy-availability-pricing-problem-140310/ http://torrentfreak.com/google-piracy-availability-pricing-p...
- pippy 13y ago
  Being from New Zealand, it hits us kiwis hard. No Netflix. No Hulu. Even when Cartoon Network uploads to YouTube their videos are often unavailable in my country. So the next best thing is piracy. You can piss around with DNS settings or wait for the DVDs to be available, but piracy is just so much more convenient.
  - PostOnce 13y ago
    I'm watching netflix from NZ, bandwidth caps here are killer, netflix scales down to 300kbit and no seeding, so it beats torrenting in a lot of cases for me, but then, I know how to configure a VPN, so I can understand why torrents are super appealing for most. Also, where is the redbox clone? Quickflix is a joke as a netflix competitor, and there's no redbox clone that I know of. 40GB bandwidth caps? 80 for $100nzd/month? Even piracy is hard at that level.
    - wmboy 13y ago
      Bandwidth caps? I pay $130/mo for unlimited data on a fibre connection through Orcon. Even if fibre isn't available yet in your area you can still get a standard broadband connection for $100/mo with unlimited data.
Duhck 13y ago
I've tried it a few times recently, and its pretty awesome. The takeaway I have from this is that if hollywood chose to embrace this sort of thing, they would solve distribution costs (seed vs host). Their cost will be contained to just marketing and production. Be gone with the archaic contracts and let people get the content when they want it in a way that makes sense for everyone.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  People to mention "Hollywood" like it's a single entity that can easily decide the fate of everyone in the movie-making business. In reality, there are lots of companies doing lots of different things and with lots of different interests. The only solution that allows them to compete with pirates is to have one monopolistic mega-corporation that controls all the content, so it can sell it easily without licensing issues. Any new content producers are somehow forced to participate in this corporation. This is even implied by piracy advocates who say "why can't Hollywood just do this"... But I'm not sure that's really what we want.
  - derefr 13y ago
    > The only solution that allows them to compete with pirates is to have one monopolistic mega-corporation that controls all the content, so it can sell it easily without licensing issues. Out-of-the-box thinking: what if the tickets to movies were sold in advance of production, like a Kickstarter?
    - cschneid 13y ago
      See-Also: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project/?ref=kicktraq https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-... $35 lets you buy the movie ahead of time. A bit steep compared with a dvd, but not by much. (plus whatever other bonuses they threw in).
  - codelap 13y ago
    Well, there is the MPAA, which seems to do what you're talking about, except rather than coming up with an all encompassing solution, they sue you. Because nothing says customer service like a lawsuit.
arg01 13y ago
So it looks like the key API that Popcorn Time uses is YTS. So I guess that will be the target of any attempts to disrupt the service. The entertainment industry is going to have to fight hard to remove geo-locking, content siloing by producer, and other barriers to consuming their service in the coming years to catch up with piracy's ease of use. If there's no barrier to entry for the laymen to pirate then it will get worse for the producers.
- seppo0010 13y ago
  I think they are also using ThePirateBay now, based on its readme https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app
  - arg01 13y ago
    I haven't had time to have a proper look at it but it appears they were only using the top movie list and aren't anymore. I bring it up on the basis that the ease of use goal would rely on being able to nearly always download the correct torrent(non fake) and using only the top movies list or a rule on number of seeders may limit the catalogue. I guess they could also use a trusted contributor list if they wanted to allow for a more general list of movies in the case that YTS is not as resilient (for whatever) reason as the pirate bay.
  - kbar13 13y ago
    TPB is crossed out
deleted 13y ago
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psychometry 13y ago
Does anyone know how it works if they don't host any data? In order to stream a movie from a torrent, you'd need to download chunks of the video file sequentially started at the beginning in order to buffer and stream it. I thought BitTorrent required chunks to be downloaded in a random order.
- cfreeman 13y ago
  It doesn't require it, but does make the swarm weaker. Some torrent clients allow streaming but it tends to be looked down on by the community. See here: http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Sequential_downloading_is_bad http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Sequential_downloading_is_bad
- quux 13y ago
  I don't know the details, but a bit torrent client can request arbitrary blocks from its peers. If this wasn't possible, doing things like resuming a partial download, or only downloading a single file from a .torrent that contains many files would be impossible. I guess this app just requests blocks starting from the beginning of the movie, and once it has enough buffered, it starts playing.
- arg01 13y ago
  There is nothing to stop a request for a specific block of the data (i.e. one close to the start). It does mean that the network is not as efficient in the case of high demand (As your more likely to have the same chunks as others and rely more on seeder). I'd assume the client (depending on how conscientious it is) just prioritizes filling a buffer and then downloads other parts of the file with any excess bandwidth.
  - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
    But in high demand, the start is copied many times by peers, who can reupload the start of the movie to each other.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
__pThrow 13y ago
In my limited experience it seems that torrent clients were all trying to migrate towards this and be a media browser first, torrent client second. The end result was user flight to the next upcoming torrent client. So was this a torrent client to start with? For the end user how does this compare to websites like stream-tv.me which aggregate links to tv shows? Those links lead to generally poor resolution shows, but not unwatchable. TV resolution with some HD resolution. Have there been cases where content providers go after the users of those sites? (I have a friend who uses them...)
officer_gotcha 13y ago
The real pirates are the hordes of lawyers with the WIPO, IFPI and the like, as well as their national backers, who have subverted the public contract on copyright and related monopolies to carve a nice niche for themselves. When talking of "piracy", this is the first problem that needs to be tackled.
aortega 13y ago
"Made with <3 by a bunch of geeks from Buenos Aires" Oh not again...
mountaineer 13y ago
On a related note, what's the story behind MovieTube[1]? It streams many movies that are still in theaters. I can't find out anything about it, but word about it is making its way around my neighborhood and I'm telling people it's not wise to use it. [1] http://www.youtubeonfire.com/ http://www.youtubeonfire.com/
- spyder 13y ago
  They seems to just stream the movies from YouTube.
ddod 13y ago
"[torrenting] isn’t necessarily safe unless you’re using a virtual private network to mask your whereabouts." I find it really frustrating that TIME can publish such incorrect information that could directly lead to the detriment of its readers. I've also seen a couple people in HN saying a VPN is the "safe" way to torrent. Unless you're sure a VPN service won't comply with subpoenas or you've paid in bitcoin, it's not safer than not using one.
- blhack 13y ago
  Let's think about the way that transaction would have to happen... An American company subpeona's a Dutch company to get information about traffic happening at a datacenter in Germany. They'd need the co-operation of many people from many different countries. I'd imagine that it's easier to just go after the trackers.
- jacalata 13y ago
  It is safER by stopping random 'bystanders' such as your ISP from just happening to notice that you torrent. It is not secure from a poisoned tracker, no.
- josu 13y ago
  You are just making it more difficult for LE to go after you. There are plenty of low hanging fruits, you are just positioning yourself in the middle of the herd when the wolf comes. Is it safe? Ok, no, you are right and your point stands, but it is safe-er.
  - sroerick 13y ago
    It stops automated IP tracking from watchdog lawyer orgs. That's about it, but that's a whole lot right there.
- TillE 13y ago
  > or you've paid in bitcoin If they're keeping IP logs and handing them over to the authorities, that wouldn't help you in the slightest. Likewise, if they have your payment information but no logs tying past activity to specific accounts, that's not much of a problem. VPNs aren't illegal. Really, it all comes down to whether you trust your VPN provider to not keep logs.
pgsch 13y ago
There are better online (and without installing anything) alternatives, like http://peliculasio.com/ http://peliculasio.com/ (spanish)
- Osiris 13y ago
  The advantage to it being offline (locally installed) is that someone cannot simply shut down the website to block everyone. It is essentially just another BitTorrent client with a really nice interface.
  - pgsch 13y ago
    They can shut down the trackers..
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      DHT Trackers are so 2008.
balls187 13y ago
Interesting. Since it uses BitTorrent, and unlikely anonymously, I'd imagine that the MPAA and their goonsquad are going to have a field day with this.
Paul12345534 13y ago
It's just as easy to pay a monthly fee for Netflix, etc.... than it is to pay for a VPN (and properly use it, a small mistake outs your IP) to avoid being sued for torrenting. Now... back in the Megaupload's heyday, things were a bit different. Lots of content, little danger. Personally I buy most of my content :) especially any program that I actually make money using.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Netflix has a poor selection, poor quality, poor playback controls, poor filtering (audio/video, like audio normalization or brightness controls), terrible subtitles and subtitle support (half the shows seem to have ALL CAPS subtitles for some crap reason). Oh, and if you travel, the site's UI starts flipping into multiple languages and subtitle selection gets worse. And, there's no apparent way to force Netflix into HD. It's usually pretty good about it, but I'd prefer to just wait a few minutes first and know I'm set. Netflix can be convenient, but searching on a torrent site, click magnet, click OK, click stream is also fairly easy and eliminates the above mentioned problems.
alaxx 13y ago
Don't worry. 3 More months and i'll be launching the next biggest movie site. P2P Streaming, MP4, Apps, everything you can imagine... Fast/Sexy and no ads.
JungleGymSam 13y ago
No, it's not scary.
meowface 13y ago
>“We don’t host anything, and none of the developers makes any money. There are no ads, no premium accounts, and no subscription fees or anything like that. It’s an experiment to learn and share.” Famous last words. The Pirate Bay has made the same defense, but companies and law enforcement generally don't seem to care. I would be shocked if they aren't sued or even prosecuted within the next year or 2. Not that that's a good thing, just that being this open and carefree about it will probably come to bite them in the ass later.
- msh 13y ago
  TPB had ads.
  - _archon_ 13y ago
    TPB had servers to pay for.
    - untog 13y ago
      Which makes TPB different from Popcorn Time, which is the point.
- belorn 13y ago
  The Pirate Bay trial was a very odd one. The law that was used to incriminate the founder was a never before cited working material for relative new law, which described an intention to make it illegal to run a service if it is primary used for illegal purposes. Usage determined the legal status of the site, which is why the prosecutor kept asking if the defenders had known how the site was used. He also used a screenshot of the top 100 list as evidence of primary usage. My first thought was that email servers would now suddenly be all illegal because they are primary used to receive spam. However, the law is unlikely to be ever used again given the very political nature of the case.
- wise_young_man 13y ago
  This is however another layer of abstraction. They are not a torrent hosting site, just a simple app for your computer that connects to sites. It's no different than a browser that visits web pages. They just made it easier to find content like that of Google.
downandout 13y ago
I realize this is an open source project, but I would steer far clear of contributing any code to it. This app is no different than Napster. From a civil perspective, its creators will be found liable for contributory infringement. But that's just the beginning. They will also likely soon experience a paramilitary style Kim Dotcom-esque raid on their homes and offices, where they will be arrested and face decades in prison. I am not sure what the point of releasing this app and making it accessible in the US is. The FBI serves at the pleasure of large US corporations, and on their request will turn these guys into cannon fodder.
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  Welcome to United Corporations of America
- silvertonia 13y ago
  Alternatively, it would be an interesting practice if some section of the project got thousands or tens of thousands of commits. I'd be interested to see a case with 100k defendants.
deleted 13y ago
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malandrew 13y ago
I would really love if they offered a "bitcoin payment" option where the studios who own the rights to a film can opt to get paid. That way all the studio would have to do is set up a bitcoin wallet and the developers would publish the wallet associated with a movie so that people consuming music can voluntarily pay for what they consume. Legally, most studios may not be able to take advantage of such a payment option because of arcane licensing contract clauses, but most indie filmmakers without such a burden could. Ideally such a feature would come with some sort of agreement that a studio absolves its right to pursue legal action upon payment of some reasonable amount (like $2-$4 for a movie and $1-$2 for a tv show).
- mkessy 13y ago
  its open source, submit a pull request
- mattmanser 13y ago
  Sounds like a really easy way to launder bitcoin.
DigitalSea 13y ago
I can understand why movie studios and copyright holders in the US would be worried, Popcorn Time lets you watch movies for free much like a traditional streaming service like Netflix offers. However, as an Australian, I see it very differently. In Australia there is nothing that comes anywhere near as close as Netflix. We have cable TV in the form of Foxtel, but the price is about $110 AUD per month to get the good movie channels and channels with popular shows on them. Then we have the up and coming Fetch TV service which offers a somewhat good alternative to cable, but nothing like Netflix or Popcorn Time does. There is no online service like Netflix in Australia. Sure, the price point is one thing, but I think Spotify has shown that an all you can eat premium service at a decent price can help reduce piracy. When Spotify launched in Australia a little while ago, I stopped downloading music because Spotify was faster and more convenient, many of my friends did the same. Americans have a good range of choice when it comes to legal options for movies and TV shows. People in Australia, New Zealand and other countries, not so much and this is why torrents and applications like Popcorn Time will continue to be the best alternative until content licencing for music and movies/tv is sorted.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  You can quite easily purchase Netflix in Australia if you feel bad about piracy, and also dislike the options available to Australians. I'm unsure on the legality (probably a grey area), but the point is you can pay money and support the service. (Edit: using a DNS service like Getflix.)
  - asdfaoeu 13y ago
    I thought they also block Australian CC's?
    - dmix 13y ago
      I bought an American Netflix account with a Canadian credit card via VPN back in the day. Not sure if that applies to aussies. They might have started checking for this since then as well. Even though we now have Netflix in Canada, the selection is awful compared to the American one.
artichokeheart 13y ago
Thanks time.com! Great publicity. Downloading now.
brianbreslin 13y ago
This is an incredibly nice looking piece of software. I have to admit I've become so conditioned to FEARING getting sued by the movie companies. I wish I could pay for this. The movie selection of streaming/bundled movies on netflix/hulu/amazon always disappoints me (new releases are never there).
usaphp 13y ago
There is a russian alternative (not sure which one came up first) called Zona (http://zona.ru/ http://zona.ru/)
- mikevm 13y ago
  Zona seems superior. Not only they let you pick among many different torrents for a particular movie, they also let you view TV Shows, TV channels and listen to music. Edit: I've just tried Popcorn Time, and it looks like it stutters on 1080p video...
EGreg 13y ago
Indeed! I always met the assertion that people are willing to pay for easy to use services with the question: what if pirate software becomes user friendly as well? After a lot of thinking about it, I believe copyright protection is valuable to society and patent protection is much less so, or even detrimental. That's because copyright protection is very narrow and in economic terms creates an artificial contract between the authors and consumers, as if the consumers hired the author for some small fee. On the other hand, once the work is created, should the consumers freely share it? Well, I don't see how to prevent it, so the laws and sanctions seem to be the only way.
frakkingcylons 13y ago
I wonder if GitHub will be able to continue hosting their website and repo considering the legal grey-area.
- dav- 13y ago
  I cloned it to my computer and set up a `git pull` cron job for this reason.
lettergram 13y ago
Wouldn't have even known about this, thank you Time.com
rattray 13y ago
Looks like it's basically a mashup of the YFTY torrents api, a few other APIs for subtitles/metadata, and the peerflix nodejs lib for streaming the torrents. Done in node-webkit. The first commit was only 20 days ago, according to github (could have rebuilt history of course), and the most recent 3 hrs ago at time of writing. Seems pretty active. It looks like "they're watching you" through Google Universal Analytics[0]. Not sure if that's something to be concerned about. Sources: https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/blob/master/pack... [0] https://github.com/peaksandpies/universal-analytics https://github.com/peaksandpies/universal-analytics
- tarblog 13y ago
  Their first commit on GitHub may only have been 20 days ago, but they certainly started working well before that. Their initial commit had a lot in it. https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/commit/342c94a2af498228ee4be95d17c28e84f58bc856 https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/commit/342c94a2a...
- e12e 13y ago
  Hm, so it is similar (but not identical) to the old Azerus, or the new tribler: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/ https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/
neurobro 13y ago
The movie industry should be more afraid of the video game industry than of piracy. It's probably less than 5-10 years before it will be possible to auto-generate somewhat entertaining feature-length sequences from the viewer's/player's favorite game assets, and then another 5 years to push movie studios into obsolescence (other than a niche market for the nostalgic old folks). Or instead of being afraid, they could fire the lawyers and invest that money in this direction.
senthilnayagam 13y ago
I am a Indian citizen, travel often to US, have a US citibank account, used mostly for filling gasoline and to subscribe to netflix. had a paid tunnelbear account as well(when I was in India or when I wanted to watch from netflix UK) . about 6 months back that bank account was suspended as I need to submit some documents for US tax authorities. for apple app store though use apple gift cards, which my friends help me with. Now don't have netflix, but have watched most latest shows and oscar nominated movies(which did not release in India) on torrent.
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forlorn 13y ago
Damn leechers. This is how p2p and user-friendy apps actually kill torrenting.
- rplnt 13y ago
  The app itself isn't seeding? This is both good and bad. The bad part is that it really damages torrents, the good part is that it's legal.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    Might be fair to add a "seeding allowed" option for those in countries not yet 5 miles into the MPAA's butt, or behind a VPN.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    It's seeding while it's streaming, and I think while on your PC too (until reboot), which seems like a pretty smart way to deal with seeding/leeching ratios to me. Legal? Seriously? You're downloading a free movie, and you're worrying whether uploading it or not would be illegal? It's already illegal. But that hasn't stopped people from using torrents, has it?
    - rplnt 13y ago
      > It's already illegal. No it's not. In general. Depends on where you live. But for me it's illegal to distribute it though, which torrent protocol does.
    - sp332 13y ago
      Distribution (uploading) of movies carries much harsher penalties than downloading movies.
    - lawl 13y ago
      Not everyone lives in 'murrica. In Switzerland (and Germany I think) downloading is perfectly legal. Uploading is not, as you are distributing instead of just consuming. Similar to how drug laws work here, you won't get busted for smoking a joint, but you will get busted for selling stuff.
Kiro 13y ago
The eternal question which makes piracy unsuitable and complicated for me: what about subtitles? As soon as you need to download it separately it's a no go. It should be one click to activate a perfectly synced subtitle in at least English.
- ZenoArrow 13y ago
  Some formats support embedded subtitles (e.g. MKV), meaning no separate subtitle download necessary. Some torrents will have subtitles distributed in this way (pretty common for anime releases).
- hierro 13y ago
  Try http://subtitlesapp.com http://subtitlesapp.com, it downloads subtitles by looking at the movie hash, so it gets perfectly synced subs 99% of the time.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  I assume you didn't try it. It does have subtitles built in, and hassle free.
  - swah 13y ago
    Portuguese ones too. I wonder how are they "paying" the translators, which live on love from the small community they upload their translations on...
- Shorel 13y ago
  Subtitles stopped being an issue for me when I discovered XBMC. Some buttons pressed on the wireless gamepad, done.
  - steeve 13y ago
    Well, you can try XBMCtorrent[1] (there is a post on the front page about it too). [1] http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
"We're not making any money off of it" is kind of a moot argument. It's like breaking without entering.
- omegaham 13y ago
  I was going to say something about how companies will sell lockpick sets to anyone and that's perfectly legal even though it facilitates burglary, but I thought of another example that might be more revealing. Say I'm an asshole and make an app that scrapes Facebook statuses. I call it "Who's Not Home?" If someone posts something like "On vacation in Barbados" in their status, it puts their name and address (plenty of people put their addresses on Facebook, or at least their general area) on a map. Why? I feel like it. I'm not making any money off of it, and the software is completely open source. Of course, the only real purpose of this is for burglars to get easy targets. Would this be legal?
  - aestra 13y ago
    This already exists. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7266120/Please-Rob-Me-website-tells-burglars-when-Twitter-users-are-not-home.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7266120/Please...
- pantaril 13y ago
  >"We're not making any money off of it" is kind of a moot argument. Sure, sharing intelectual property should be OK even if you make money on it.
jotaass 13y ago
This reminds me of the excellent tv.js. The same, but running in your browser (plus node.js) https://github.com/SamyPesse/tv.js https://github.com/SamyPesse/tv.js
spacesword 13y ago
I had no idea node.js was this powerful, can somebody point me in the direction so I can learn how to use PeerFlix to make something like this?
- CStorm 13y ago
  https://github.com/mafintosh/peerflix https://github.com/mafintosh/peerflix
reidrac 13y ago
Why can't I pay to have legally something like this? I want it! I'm a Linux only user. What do I have right now? Well, Flash player + outdated DRM technology (HAL is been dead for a while, Adobe don't care) or play with Wine to run software that the vendor won't support in Linux. And after tackling the outdated DRM issue with flash and paying for a movie stream in Google Play, the best I can get is 480p. Really? Seriously. Make it happen. Take my money.
- johnnymonster 13y ago
  I have been saying this for years! I don't understand how music and movie companies pay millions of dollars to fight these sorts of products but then spend 10 dollars on delivery of their own content! This product is beautiful, why is it that some dudes in south america can make something so wonderful and the multi billion dollar movie industry can't do jack!
scrrr 13y ago
Shouldn't somebody at time.com be charged with crime for posting a link to an infringing site? ;)
m4r71n 13y ago
I couldn't find this anywhere: does the client support BitTorrent protocol encryption and does it allow you to specify to download from encrypted peers only?
- crummy 13y ago
  uTorrent provides this feature, so I would assume the protocol does.
gcb0 13y ago
Can someone pirate the article on a decent platform. The genius there made something that it is now impossible to scroll on Android 2.3 Not even joking with the irony
ChristianMarks 13y ago
My solution is legal but unpopular: no MPAA movies, no RIAA recordings.
steeve 13y ago
For those on XBMC (aka who want to use their TV), I've been working on an extension for the last 6 months called XBMCtorrent that does that: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 It's based on libtorrent (C++), Golang, and Python. The major difference is that since it's based on libtorrent, it has good performance (even on low end CPUs like the RPi) and tries _very_ hard not to weaken the swarm too much (even though it uses sequential downloading). So this means it runs on Mac, Linux, Windows and even Android and Raspberry Pi (OpenELEC).
- felipebueno 13y ago
  Hi, Steeve! Thank you for this awesome project. Can't wait to see it running on my RPi. =)
  - steeve 13y ago
    Seems like it needs more publicity :) For your RPi, be sure to have enough space on your SD card. If the video stutters, put a download speed cap.
antoinec 13y ago
The most amazing thing to me about this is that it took that much time to get to this software.
dspillett 13y ago
> “We don’t expect legal issues,” Really? This seems somewhat naive to me... > “We don’t host anything, and none of the developers makes any money. That has not posed a problem for those going after others in the past. As soon as a large enough entity takes notice they'll run, either because there is a case to answer or because they can't afford the legal team required to prove there is not a case to answer.
- rplnt 13y ago
  They are not located in USA (nor UK, which seems to be very servant). In Europe, they could have problem if they were making money off this service. I doubt it's more strict in South America. The worst that could happen in my opinion is that someone will assfuck ICANN and they will seize the domain somehow.
- nikolak 13y ago
  Couldn't the same be said for open source torrent clients/libs which are fairly popular? I don't see anyone going after those, even though they also don't have money for legal teams.
  - dspillett 13y ago
    Those clients/libs aren't getting articles in Time, and for the most part aren't as slick and ready for the general (non-technical) public though.
LeicaLatte 13y ago
Popcorn time had been trending in github all of last week. Its starting to hit mainstream now.
munimkazia 13y ago
I was waiting for the first big mainstream node.js desktop app to come around. This could be it.
shekhar101 13y ago
Awesome! This is so neat! Since project is open source, any idea, how some more sources can be added?
babby 13y ago
This is suprisingly convenient; but I've always wanted to build something like this for years, but for power users. Instead of streaming, it would be a node-webkit-esque app that allows one to; - Sync media over LAN, sync user's catalog everywhere with the option to sync data from one PC over the internet - Manage and browse media (By building a catalog of items from several watched directories) - Delete, move, rename media easily. Perhaps even manage archive formats automatically (autoextraction) - An api for subtitles - Build statistics, time watched, tv shows added per x time etc. - Store metadata like time media was paused at (to resume at), with a visual indicator in the catalog view - Automated parsing of releases, soft renaming - Scrape data for each item, generate tags from that data, categories - Archiving, sorting, grouping - Personalized catalogs of "what I watch". Kind of like how you might customize http://pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ http://pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ - A real-time tracker for new releases. It would query a web service which has a bot idling in a prechan, then after parsing each release it is able to match to any item that you watch and notify you that "this just came out". Alternatively, it could, for TV, just utilize airtimes from TVRage - Personalized page that lists all of the stuff you are looking for. List of things that you haven't downloaded yet but are in your list etc. - Integrated user defined searches. Allowing one to search their favorite sources autocompleted with things in the application's local catalog of "stuff you want/watch". - A nice dark interface, surprisingly a lot like what Popcorn Time is doing, though much more complex and functional. - The ability to choose your own media player to launch, thus giving up statistics, pause time and "watched" states. Would require the user to commit this info themselves, with a form popping up whenever they launch something from the app if they so choose. - Multiple sub-users per "catalog", so that one person would have access to the same file but may not have watched/behaved the same way as another user on the network - Integrated "coming soon" feed for tv and movies that you could preemptively select to be notified about. - One big database file that would be dynamic to the content available to it. This way the installation could be portable, and whenever it detects its on a different system (Synced by a dropbox service or a USB drive), the app will ask to specify watch-folders to sync with the database so that one could keep track of their "catalog", add things to it etc. - Open source, built on node-webkit like Popcorn. No datamining, pro privacy. - Works in a browser, thus on phones (I guess some TV's/Consoles too?) connected to the WLAN - Integration of a "WebUI" from popular torrent clients, with a custom standardized interface for all of them. So basically XBMC for pirates, I guess. Something tells me it's a niche market.
betterunix 13y ago
What is scary about this?
rodolphoarruda 13y ago
I would like to "test this software for unlimited time", if you know what I mean. How do I install it in Ubuntu? I have downloaded the package and tried to run it through the usual software installer, but it didn't work. Then I went to their FAQ page but couldn't find any clues about it.
davexunit 13y ago
Piracy is a loaded word. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy
nkg 13y ago
was that advertising? If so, it worked just fine. While I had never heard about that app, I've just installed it and forgot about every torrent website!
johnnymonster 13y ago
well there goes yify torrents, with this much publicity on an app the movie companies are gonna go after whoever they are getting their movies from...
johnnymonster 13y ago
I had no idea node-webkit was a thing!!! There goes what little free time I had.
pkinsky 13y ago
Antigua is still authorized by the WTO to suspend US copyright. I wonder if an american startup could get away with running a hosted Popcorn Time service out of an Antiguan data center. They'd need to register an Antiguan LLC, of course. Imagine Netflix, but with every film ever shot in Hollywood.
- cbr 13y ago
  The last I heard Antigua had permission from the WTO to ignore US copyrights, but hadn't actually changed their local laws to no longer require people to respect these copyrights. Has this changed?
  - pkinsky 13y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know that. Nothing seems to have changed.
sdfjkl 13y ago
Unlike Netflix, it doesn't want me to install dodgy clones[1] of a dying technology[2] for no good reason[3]. [1] Silverlight [2] Flash [3] My browser can play several modern video formats natively.
- owenversteeg 13y ago
  It uses Silverlight to prevent piracy.
  - sdfjkl 13y ago
    You mean it uses Silverlight to encourage piracy.
deleted 13y ago
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Legend 13y ago
Reminds me of a work on detecting copyright monitors. Read the introduction part to understand the risks of using torrents to stream movies. https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/fahmy/papers/PAM2011.pdf https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/fahmy/papers/PAM2011.pdf
mikewhy 13y ago
Disclaimer: I am the author of the channel. Would like to mention SS Plex[1]. It doesn't use torrents, but it allows you to stream and download content to a wider variety of devices. [1]: http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/ http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/
ronny4563 13y ago
HOW TO RIP THE MOVIES FROM POPCORN TIME TO DVD FORMATT OR BLURAY PLZ HELP DOES IT COME WITH A DVD CONVERTER IF SO PLZ SEND ME THE LINK SO THAT I MAY DOWNLOAD IT AND START USING IT RIGHT AWAY ALONG WITH LICENSE KEY AS WELL
milesf 13y ago
Time magazine, who is owned by TimeWarner, runs a story on how to watch pirate movies? TimeWarner, owner of Warner Bros and HBO? THAT TimeWarner? I smell children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnhfvGdmmw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnhfvGdmmw
programminggeek 13y ago
Am I crazy in thinking that Popcorn Time is a trap? It feels like one of those thins that is executed well enough that it will be seen as a threat and shut down ASAP. OR... it will be allowed to continue as a way to easily catch "pirates". I personally believe that movie studios would do well to follow the Pirate License(http://retromocha.com/pirate-license.html http://retromocha.com/pirate-license.html) approach, but I just don't see them ever being that forward thinking when they are making millions of dollars with the old way.

624 points by caiobegotti 13y ago

Sometime sites/apps/people that are legally questionable are too high profile for their own good. This might soon the case with Popcorn Time. It is like being The Pirate Bay, Joaquín “El Chapo" Guzman, Kim Dotcom, etc big target on your back.

adamnemecek 13y ago

It's pretty clever that all the movies shown in the screenshot of the app (at http://getpopcornti.me http://getpopcornti.me) are public domain.

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
Was thinking that myself. Good way to avoid the claim that they're advertising watching movies that can't possibly be legal.
kilian 13y ago
It had recent movies when they first released the website: https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-time.github.io/commit/33edf98d047a686b611f50551c6786a31b3a2b6b https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-time.github.io/commi... Someone must've suggested it would probably be better to not blatantly promote piracy ;)
sroerick 13y ago
I wish there was actually a feature to show only public domain or CC movies.
- Springtime 13y ago
  I agree, although the quality of PD films is generally mediocre from everything I've seen. Seems mostly due to companies not bothering to perform better transfers and clean-ups as it's not very profitable.
  - sroerick 13y ago
    Yeah. I'm with you there. Production quality, too. One of the hardest parts of trying to boycott conventional Hollywood culture is making the aesthetic leap to public domain.

kosei 13y ago

Reminds me of the old Gabe Newell (Valve founder) quote: "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem... If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

greyskull 13y ago
A similar quote came out of Google recently: http://torrentfreak.com/google-piracy-availability-pricing-problem-140310/ http://torrentfreak.com/google-piracy-availability-pricing-p...
pippy 13y ago
Being from New Zealand, it hits us kiwis hard. No Netflix. No Hulu. Even when Cartoon Network uploads to YouTube their videos are often unavailable in my country. So the next best thing is piracy. You can piss around with DNS settings or wait for the DVDs to be available, but piracy is just so much more convenient.
- PostOnce 13y ago
  I'm watching netflix from NZ, bandwidth caps here are killer, netflix scales down to 300kbit and no seeding, so it beats torrenting in a lot of cases for me, but then, I know how to configure a VPN, so I can understand why torrents are super appealing for most. Also, where is the redbox clone? Quickflix is a joke as a netflix competitor, and there's no redbox clone that I know of. 40GB bandwidth caps? 80 for $100nzd/month? Even piracy is hard at that level.
  - wmboy 13y ago
    Bandwidth caps? I pay $130/mo for unlimited data on a fibre connection through Orcon. Even if fibre isn't available yet in your area you can still get a standard broadband connection for $100/mo with unlimited data.

Duhck 13y ago

I've tried it a few times recently, and its pretty awesome. The takeaway I have from this is that if hollywood chose to embrace this sort of thing, they would solve distribution costs (seed vs host). Their cost will be contained to just marketing and production. Be gone with the archaic contracts and let people get the content when they want it in a way that makes sense for everyone.

fragsworth 13y ago
People to mention "Hollywood" like it's a single entity that can easily decide the fate of everyone in the movie-making business. In reality, there are lots of companies doing lots of different things and with lots of different interests. The only solution that allows them to compete with pirates is to have one monopolistic mega-corporation that controls all the content, so it can sell it easily without licensing issues. Any new content producers are somehow forced to participate in this corporation. This is even implied by piracy advocates who say "why can't Hollywood just do this"... But I'm not sure that's really what we want.
- derefr 13y ago
  > The only solution that allows them to compete with pirates is to have one monopolistic mega-corporation that controls all the content, so it can sell it easily without licensing issues. Out-of-the-box thinking: what if the tickets to movies were sold in advance of production, like a Kickstarter?
  - cschneid 13y ago
    See-Also: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project/?ref=kicktraq https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-... $35 lets you buy the movie ahead of time. A bit steep compared with a dvd, but not by much. (plus whatever other bonuses they threw in).
- codelap 13y ago
  Well, there is the MPAA, which seems to do what you're talking about, except rather than coming up with an all encompassing solution, they sue you. Because nothing says customer service like a lawsuit.

arg01 13y ago

So it looks like the key API that Popcorn Time uses is YTS. So I guess that will be the target of any attempts to disrupt the service. The entertainment industry is going to have to fight hard to remove geo-locking, content siloing by producer, and other barriers to consuming their service in the coming years to catch up with piracy's ease of use. If there's no barrier to entry for the laymen to pirate then it will get worse for the producers.

seppo0010 13y ago
I think they are also using ThePirateBay now, based on its readme https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app
- arg01 13y ago
  I haven't had time to have a proper look at it but it appears they were only using the top movie list and aren't anymore. I bring it up on the basis that the ease of use goal would rely on being able to nearly always download the correct torrent(non fake) and using only the top movies list or a rule on number of seeders may limit the catalogue. I guess they could also use a trusted contributor list if they wanted to allow for a more general list of movies in the case that YTS is not as resilient (for whatever) reason as the pirate bay.
- kbar13 13y ago
  TPB is crossed out

deleted 13y ago

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psychometry 13y ago

Does anyone know how it works if they don't host any data? In order to stream a movie from a torrent, you'd need to download chunks of the video file sequentially started at the beginning in order to buffer and stream it. I thought BitTorrent required chunks to be downloaded in a random order.

cfreeman 13y ago
It doesn't require it, but does make the swarm weaker. Some torrent clients allow streaming but it tends to be looked down on by the community. See here: http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Sequential_downloading_is_bad http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Sequential_downloading_is_bad
quux 13y ago
I don't know the details, but a bit torrent client can request arbitrary blocks from its peers. If this wasn't possible, doing things like resuming a partial download, or only downloading a single file from a .torrent that contains many files would be impossible. I guess this app just requests blocks starting from the beginning of the movie, and once it has enough buffered, it starts playing.
arg01 13y ago
There is nothing to stop a request for a specific block of the data (i.e. one close to the start). It does mean that the network is not as efficient in the case of high demand (As your more likely to have the same chunks as others and rely more on seeder). I'd assume the client (depending on how conscientious it is) just prioritizes filling a buffer and then downloads other parts of the file with any excess bandwidth.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  But in high demand, the start is copied many times by peers, who can reupload the start of the movie to each other.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

__pThrow 13y ago

In my limited experience it seems that torrent clients were all trying to migrate towards this and be a media browser first, torrent client second. The end result was user flight to the next upcoming torrent client. So was this a torrent client to start with? For the end user how does this compare to websites like stream-tv.me which aggregate links to tv shows? Those links lead to generally poor resolution shows, but not unwatchable. TV resolution with some HD resolution. Have there been cases where content providers go after the users of those sites? (I have a friend who uses them...)

officer_gotcha 13y ago

The real pirates are the hordes of lawyers with the WIPO, IFPI and the like, as well as their national backers, who have subverted the public contract on copyright and related monopolies to carve a nice niche for themselves. When talking of "piracy", this is the first problem that needs to be tackled.

aortega 13y ago

"Made with <3 by a bunch of geeks from Buenos Aires" Oh not again...

mountaineer 13y ago

On a related note, what's the story behind MovieTube[1]? It streams many movies that are still in theaters. I can't find out anything about it, but word about it is making its way around my neighborhood and I'm telling people it's not wise to use it. [1] http://www.youtubeonfire.com/ http://www.youtubeonfire.com/

spyder 13y ago
They seems to just stream the movies from YouTube.

ddod 13y ago

"[torrenting] isn’t necessarily safe unless you’re using a virtual private network to mask your whereabouts." I find it really frustrating that TIME can publish such incorrect information that could directly lead to the detriment of its readers. I've also seen a couple people in HN saying a VPN is the "safe" way to torrent. Unless you're sure a VPN service won't comply with subpoenas or you've paid in bitcoin, it's not safer than not using one.

blhack 13y ago
Let's think about the way that transaction would have to happen... An American company subpeona's a Dutch company to get information about traffic happening at a datacenter in Germany. They'd need the co-operation of many people from many different countries. I'd imagine that it's easier to just go after the trackers.
jacalata 13y ago
It is safER by stopping random 'bystanders' such as your ISP from just happening to notice that you torrent. It is not secure from a poisoned tracker, no.
josu 13y ago
You are just making it more difficult for LE to go after you. There are plenty of low hanging fruits, you are just positioning yourself in the middle of the herd when the wolf comes. Is it safe? Ok, no, you are right and your point stands, but it is safe-er.
- sroerick 13y ago
  It stops automated IP tracking from watchdog lawyer orgs. That's about it, but that's a whole lot right there.
TillE 13y ago
> or you've paid in bitcoin If they're keeping IP logs and handing them over to the authorities, that wouldn't help you in the slightest. Likewise, if they have your payment information but no logs tying past activity to specific accounts, that's not much of a problem. VPNs aren't illegal. Really, it all comes down to whether you trust your VPN provider to not keep logs.

pgsch 13y ago

There are better online (and without installing anything) alternatives, like http://peliculasio.com/ http://peliculasio.com/ (spanish)

Osiris 13y ago
The advantage to it being offline (locally installed) is that someone cannot simply shut down the website to block everyone. It is essentially just another BitTorrent client with a really nice interface.
- pgsch 13y ago
  They can shut down the trackers..
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    DHT Trackers are so 2008.

balls187 13y ago

Interesting. Since it uses BitTorrent, and unlikely anonymously, I'd imagine that the MPAA and their goonsquad are going to have a field day with this.

Paul12345534 13y ago

It's just as easy to pay a monthly fee for Netflix, etc.... than it is to pay for a VPN (and properly use it, a small mistake outs your IP) to avoid being sued for torrenting. Now... back in the Megaupload's heyday, things were a bit different. Lots of content, little danger. Personally I buy most of my content :) especially any program that I actually make money using.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Netflix has a poor selection, poor quality, poor playback controls, poor filtering (audio/video, like audio normalization or brightness controls), terrible subtitles and subtitle support (half the shows seem to have ALL CAPS subtitles for some crap reason). Oh, and if you travel, the site's UI starts flipping into multiple languages and subtitle selection gets worse. And, there's no apparent way to force Netflix into HD. It's usually pretty good about it, but I'd prefer to just wait a few minutes first and know I'm set. Netflix can be convenient, but searching on a torrent site, click magnet, click OK, click stream is also fairly easy and eliminates the above mentioned problems.

alaxx 13y ago

Don't worry. 3 More months and i'll be launching the next biggest movie site. P2P Streaming, MP4, Apps, everything you can imagine... Fast/Sexy and no ads.

JungleGymSam 13y ago

No, it's not scary.

meowface 13y ago

>“We don’t host anything, and none of the developers makes any money. There are no ads, no premium accounts, and no subscription fees or anything like that. It’s an experiment to learn and share.” Famous last words. The Pirate Bay has made the same defense, but companies and law enforcement generally don't seem to care. I would be shocked if they aren't sued or even prosecuted within the next year or 2. Not that that's a good thing, just that being this open and carefree about it will probably come to bite them in the ass later.

msh 13y ago
TPB had ads.
- _archon_ 13y ago
  TPB had servers to pay for.
  - untog 13y ago
    Which makes TPB different from Popcorn Time, which is the point.
belorn 13y ago
The Pirate Bay trial was a very odd one. The law that was used to incriminate the founder was a never before cited working material for relative new law, which described an intention to make it illegal to run a service if it is primary used for illegal purposes. Usage determined the legal status of the site, which is why the prosecutor kept asking if the defenders had known how the site was used. He also used a screenshot of the top 100 list as evidence of primary usage. My first thought was that email servers would now suddenly be all illegal because they are primary used to receive spam. However, the law is unlikely to be ever used again given the very political nature of the case.
wise_young_man 13y ago
This is however another layer of abstraction. They are not a torrent hosting site, just a simple app for your computer that connects to sites. It's no different than a browser that visits web pages. They just made it easier to find content like that of Google.

downandout 13y ago

I realize this is an open source project, but I would steer far clear of contributing any code to it. This app is no different than Napster. From a civil perspective, its creators will be found liable for contributory infringement. But that's just the beginning. They will also likely soon experience a paramilitary style Kim Dotcom-esque raid on their homes and offices, where they will be arrested and face decades in prison. I am not sure what the point of releasing this app and making it accessible in the US is. The FBI serves at the pleasure of large US corporations, and on their request will turn these guys into cannon fodder.

oscargrouch 13y ago
Welcome to United Corporations of America
silvertonia 13y ago
Alternatively, it would be an interesting practice if some section of the project got thousands or tens of thousands of commits. I'd be interested to see a case with 100k defendants.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

malandrew 13y ago

I would really love if they offered a "bitcoin payment" option where the studios who own the rights to a film can opt to get paid. That way all the studio would have to do is set up a bitcoin wallet and the developers would publish the wallet associated with a movie so that people consuming music can voluntarily pay for what they consume. Legally, most studios may not be able to take advantage of such a payment option because of arcane licensing contract clauses, but most indie filmmakers without such a burden could. Ideally such a feature would come with some sort of agreement that a studio absolves its right to pursue legal action upon payment of some reasonable amount (like $2-$4 for a movie and $1-$2 for a tv show).

mkessy 13y ago
its open source, submit a pull request
mattmanser 13y ago
Sounds like a really easy way to launder bitcoin.

DigitalSea 13y ago

I can understand why movie studios and copyright holders in the US would be worried, Popcorn Time lets you watch movies for free much like a traditional streaming service like Netflix offers. However, as an Australian, I see it very differently. In Australia there is nothing that comes anywhere near as close as Netflix. We have cable TV in the form of Foxtel, but the price is about $110 AUD per month to get the good movie channels and channels with popular shows on them. Then we have the up and coming Fetch TV service which offers a somewhat good alternative to cable, but nothing like Netflix or Popcorn Time does. There is no online service like Netflix in Australia. Sure, the price point is one thing, but I think Spotify has shown that an all you can eat premium service at a decent price can help reduce piracy. When Spotify launched in Australia a little while ago, I stopped downloading music because Spotify was faster and more convenient, many of my friends did the same. Americans have a good range of choice when it comes to legal options for movies and TV shows. People in Australia, New Zealand and other countries, not so much and this is why torrents and applications like Popcorn Time will continue to be the best alternative until content licencing for music and movies/tv is sorted.

interpol_p 13y ago
You can quite easily purchase Netflix in Australia if you feel bad about piracy, and also dislike the options available to Australians. I'm unsure on the legality (probably a grey area), but the point is you can pay money and support the service. (Edit: using a DNS service like Getflix.)
- asdfaoeu 13y ago
  I thought they also block Australian CC's?
  - dmix 13y ago
    I bought an American Netflix account with a Canadian credit card via VPN back in the day. Not sure if that applies to aussies. They might have started checking for this since then as well. Even though we now have Netflix in Canada, the selection is awful compared to the American one.

artichokeheart 13y ago

Thanks time.com! Great publicity. Downloading now.

brianbreslin 13y ago

This is an incredibly nice looking piece of software. I have to admit I've become so conditioned to FEARING getting sued by the movie companies. I wish I could pay for this. The movie selection of streaming/bundled movies on netflix/hulu/amazon always disappoints me (new releases are never there).

usaphp 13y ago

There is a russian alternative (not sure which one came up first) called Zona (http://zona.ru/ http://zona.ru/)

mikevm 13y ago
Zona seems superior. Not only they let you pick among many different torrents for a particular movie, they also let you view TV Shows, TV channels and listen to music. Edit: I've just tried Popcorn Time, and it looks like it stutters on 1080p video...

EGreg 13y ago

Indeed! I always met the assertion that people are willing to pay for easy to use services with the question: what if pirate software becomes user friendly as well? After a lot of thinking about it, I believe copyright protection is valuable to society and patent protection is much less so, or even detrimental. That's because copyright protection is very narrow and in economic terms creates an artificial contract between the authors and consumers, as if the consumers hired the author for some small fee. On the other hand, once the work is created, should the consumers freely share it? Well, I don't see how to prevent it, so the laws and sanctions seem to be the only way.

frakkingcylons 13y ago

I wonder if GitHub will be able to continue hosting their website and repo considering the legal grey-area.

dav- 13y ago
I cloned it to my computer and set up a `git pull` cron job for this reason.

lettergram 13y ago

Wouldn't have even known about this, thank you Time.com

rattray 13y ago

Looks like it's basically a mashup of the YFTY torrents api, a few other APIs for subtitles/metadata, and the peerflix nodejs lib for streaming the torrents. Done in node-webkit. The first commit was only 20 days ago, according to github (could have rebuilt history of course), and the most recent 3 hrs ago at time of writing. Seems pretty active. It looks like "they're watching you" through Google Universal Analytics[0]. Not sure if that's something to be concerned about. Sources: https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/blob/master/pack... [0] https://github.com/peaksandpies/universal-analytics https://github.com/peaksandpies/universal-analytics

tarblog 13y ago
Their first commit on GitHub may only have been 20 days ago, but they certainly started working well before that. Their initial commit had a lot in it. https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/commit/342c94a2af498228ee4be95d17c28e84f58bc856 https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app/commit/342c94a2a...
e12e 13y ago
Hm, so it is similar (but not identical) to the old Azerus, or the new tribler: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/ https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/

neurobro 13y ago

The movie industry should be more afraid of the video game industry than of piracy. It's probably less than 5-10 years before it will be possible to auto-generate somewhat entertaining feature-length sequences from the viewer's/player's favorite game assets, and then another 5 years to push movie studios into obsolescence (other than a niche market for the nostalgic old folks). Or instead of being afraid, they could fire the lawyers and invest that money in this direction.

senthilnayagam 13y ago

I am a Indian citizen, travel often to US, have a US citibank account, used mostly for filling gasoline and to subscribe to netflix. had a paid tunnelbear account as well(when I was in India or when I wanted to watch from netflix UK) . about 6 months back that bank account was suspended as I need to submit some documents for US tax authorities. for apple app store though use apple gift cards, which my friends help me with. Now don't have netflix, but have watched most latest shows and oscar nominated movies(which did not release in India) on torrent.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

forlorn 13y ago

Damn leechers. This is how p2p and user-friendy apps actually kill torrenting.

rplnt 13y ago
The app itself isn't seeding? This is both good and bad. The bad part is that it really damages torrents, the good part is that it's legal.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Might be fair to add a "seeding allowed" option for those in countries not yet 5 miles into the MPAA's butt, or behind a VPN.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  It's seeding while it's streaming, and I think while on your PC too (until reboot), which seems like a pretty smart way to deal with seeding/leeching ratios to me. Legal? Seriously? You're downloading a free movie, and you're worrying whether uploading it or not would be illegal? It's already illegal. But that hasn't stopped people from using torrents, has it?
  - rplnt 13y ago
    > It's already illegal. No it's not. In general. Depends on where you live. But for me it's illegal to distribute it though, which torrent protocol does.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Distribution (uploading) of movies carries much harsher penalties than downloading movies.
  - lawl 13y ago
    Not everyone lives in 'murrica. In Switzerland (and Germany I think) downloading is perfectly legal. Uploading is not, as you are distributing instead of just consuming. Similar to how drug laws work here, you won't get busted for smoking a joint, but you will get busted for selling stuff.

Kiro 13y ago

The eternal question which makes piracy unsuitable and complicated for me: what about subtitles? As soon as you need to download it separately it's a no go. It should be one click to activate a perfectly synced subtitle in at least English.

ZenoArrow 13y ago
Some formats support embedded subtitles (e.g. MKV), meaning no separate subtitle download necessary. Some torrents will have subtitles distributed in this way (pretty common for anime releases).
hierro 13y ago
Try http://subtitlesapp.com http://subtitlesapp.com, it downloads subtitles by looking at the movie hash, so it gets perfectly synced subs 99% of the time.
higherpurpose 13y ago
I assume you didn't try it. It does have subtitles built in, and hassle free.
- swah 13y ago
  Portuguese ones too. I wonder how are they "paying" the translators, which live on love from the small community they upload their translations on...
Shorel 13y ago
Subtitles stopped being an issue for me when I discovered XBMC. Some buttons pressed on the wireless gamepad, done.
- steeve 13y ago
  Well, you can try XBMCtorrent[1] (there is a post on the front page about it too). [1] http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

"We're not making any money off of it" is kind of a moot argument. It's like breaking without entering.

omegaham 13y ago
I was going to say something about how companies will sell lockpick sets to anyone and that's perfectly legal even though it facilitates burglary, but I thought of another example that might be more revealing. Say I'm an asshole and make an app that scrapes Facebook statuses. I call it "Who's Not Home?" If someone posts something like "On vacation in Barbados" in their status, it puts their name and address (plenty of people put their addresses on Facebook, or at least their general area) on a map. Why? I feel like it. I'm not making any money off of it, and the software is completely open source. Of course, the only real purpose of this is for burglars to get easy targets. Would this be legal?
- aestra 13y ago
  This already exists. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7266120/Please-Rob-Me-website-tells-burglars-when-Twitter-users-are-not-home.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7266120/Please...
pantaril 13y ago
>"We're not making any money off of it" is kind of a moot argument. Sure, sharing intelectual property should be OK even if you make money on it.

jotaass 13y ago

This reminds me of the excellent tv.js. The same, but running in your browser (plus node.js) https://github.com/SamyPesse/tv.js https://github.com/SamyPesse/tv.js

spacesword 13y ago

I had no idea node.js was this powerful, can somebody point me in the direction so I can learn how to use PeerFlix to make something like this?

CStorm 13y ago
https://github.com/mafintosh/peerflix https://github.com/mafintosh/peerflix

reidrac 13y ago

Why can't I pay to have legally something like this? I want it! I'm a Linux only user. What do I have right now? Well, Flash player + outdated DRM technology (HAL is been dead for a while, Adobe don't care) or play with Wine to run software that the vendor won't support in Linux. And after tackling the outdated DRM issue with flash and paying for a movie stream in Google Play, the best I can get is 480p. Really? Seriously. Make it happen. Take my money.

johnnymonster 13y ago
I have been saying this for years! I don't understand how music and movie companies pay millions of dollars to fight these sorts of products but then spend 10 dollars on delivery of their own content! This product is beautiful, why is it that some dudes in south america can make something so wonderful and the multi billion dollar movie industry can't do jack!

scrrr 13y ago

Shouldn't somebody at time.com be charged with crime for posting a link to an infringing site? ;)

m4r71n 13y ago

I couldn't find this anywhere: does the client support BitTorrent protocol encryption and does it allow you to specify to download from encrypted peers only?

crummy 13y ago
uTorrent provides this feature, so I would assume the protocol does.

gcb0 13y ago

Can someone pirate the article on a decent platform. The genius there made something that it is now impossible to scroll on Android 2.3 Not even joking with the irony

ChristianMarks 13y ago

My solution is legal but unpopular: no MPAA movies, no RIAA recordings.

steeve 13y ago

For those on XBMC (aka who want to use their TV), I've been working on an extension for the last 6 months called XBMCtorrent that does that: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736 It's based on libtorrent (C++), Golang, and Python. The major difference is that since it's based on libtorrent, it has good performance (even on low end CPUs like the RPi) and tries _very_ hard not to weaken the swarm too much (even though it uses sequential downloading). So this means it runs on Mac, Linux, Windows and even Android and Raspberry Pi (OpenELEC).

felipebueno 13y ago
Hi, Steeve! Thank you for this awesome project. Can't wait to see it running on my RPi. =)
- steeve 13y ago
  Seems like it needs more publicity :) For your RPi, be sure to have enough space on your SD card. If the video stutters, put a download speed cap.

antoinec 13y ago

The most amazing thing to me about this is that it took that much time to get to this software.

dspillett 13y ago

> “We don’t expect legal issues,” Really? This seems somewhat naive to me... > “We don’t host anything, and none of the developers makes any money. That has not posed a problem for those going after others in the past. As soon as a large enough entity takes notice they'll run, either because there is a case to answer or because they can't afford the legal team required to prove there is not a case to answer.

rplnt 13y ago
They are not located in USA (nor UK, which seems to be very servant). In Europe, they could have problem if they were making money off this service. I doubt it's more strict in South America. The worst that could happen in my opinion is that someone will assfuck ICANN and they will seize the domain somehow.
nikolak 13y ago
Couldn't the same be said for open source torrent clients/libs which are fairly popular? I don't see anyone going after those, even though they also don't have money for legal teams.
- dspillett 13y ago
  Those clients/libs aren't getting articles in Time, and for the most part aren't as slick and ready for the general (non-technical) public though.

LeicaLatte 13y ago

Popcorn time had been trending in github all of last week. Its starting to hit mainstream now.

munimkazia 13y ago

I was waiting for the first big mainstream node.js desktop app to come around. This could be it.

shekhar101 13y ago

Awesome! This is so neat! Since project is open source, any idea, how some more sources can be added?

babby 13y ago

This is suprisingly convenient; but I've always wanted to build something like this for years, but for power users. Instead of streaming, it would be a node-webkit-esque app that allows one to; - Sync media over LAN, sync user's catalog everywhere with the option to sync data from one PC over the internet - Manage and browse media (By building a catalog of items from several watched directories) - Delete, move, rename media easily. Perhaps even manage archive formats automatically (autoextraction) - An api for subtitles - Build statistics, time watched, tv shows added per x time etc. - Store metadata like time media was paused at (to resume at), with a visual indicator in the catalog view - Automated parsing of releases, soft renaming - Scrape data for each item, generate tags from that data, categories - Archiving, sorting, grouping - Personalized catalogs of "what I watch". Kind of like how you might customize http://pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ http://pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ - A real-time tracker for new releases. It would query a web service which has a bot idling in a prechan, then after parsing each release it is able to match to any item that you watch and notify you that "this just came out". Alternatively, it could, for TV, just utilize airtimes from TVRage - Personalized page that lists all of the stuff you are looking for. List of things that you haven't downloaded yet but are in your list etc. - Integrated user defined searches. Allowing one to search their favorite sources autocompleted with things in the application's local catalog of "stuff you want/watch". - A nice dark interface, surprisingly a lot like what Popcorn Time is doing, though much more complex and functional. - The ability to choose your own media player to launch, thus giving up statistics, pause time and "watched" states. Would require the user to commit this info themselves, with a form popping up whenever they launch something from the app if they so choose. - Multiple sub-users per "catalog", so that one person would have access to the same file but may not have watched/behaved the same way as another user on the network - Integrated "coming soon" feed for tv and movies that you could preemptively select to be notified about. - One big database file that would be dynamic to the content available to it. This way the installation could be portable, and whenever it detects its on a different system (Synced by a dropbox service or a USB drive), the app will ask to specify watch-folders to sync with the database so that one could keep track of their "catalog", add things to it etc. - Open source, built on node-webkit like Popcorn. No datamining, pro privacy. - Works in a browser, thus on phones (I guess some TV's/Consoles too?) connected to the WLAN - Integration of a "WebUI" from popular torrent clients, with a custom standardized interface for all of them. So basically XBMC for pirates, I guess. Something tells me it's a niche market.

betterunix 13y ago

What is scary about this?

rodolphoarruda 13y ago

I would like to "test this software for unlimited time", if you know what I mean. How do I install it in Ubuntu? I have downloaded the package and tried to run it through the usual software installer, but it didn't work. Then I went to their FAQ page but couldn't find any clues about it.

davexunit 13y ago

Piracy is a loaded word. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

nkg 13y ago

was that advertising? If so, it worked just fine. While I had never heard about that app, I've just installed it and forgot about every torrent website!

johnnymonster 13y ago

well there goes yify torrents, with this much publicity on an app the movie companies are gonna go after whoever they are getting their movies from...

johnnymonster 13y ago

I had no idea node-webkit was a thing!!! There goes what little free time I had.

pkinsky 13y ago

Antigua is still authorized by the WTO to suspend US copyright. I wonder if an american startup could get away with running a hosted Popcorn Time service out of an Antiguan data center. They'd need to register an Antiguan LLC, of course. Imagine Netflix, but with every film ever shot in Hollywood.

cbr 13y ago
The last I heard Antigua had permission from the WTO to ignore US copyrights, but hadn't actually changed their local laws to no longer require people to respect these copyrights. Has this changed?
- pkinsky 13y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that. Nothing seems to have changed.

sdfjkl 13y ago

Unlike Netflix, it doesn't want me to install dodgy clones[1] of a dying technology[2] for no good reason[3]. [1] Silverlight [2] Flash [3] My browser can play several modern video formats natively.

owenversteeg 13y ago
It uses Silverlight to prevent piracy.
- sdfjkl 13y ago
  You mean it uses Silverlight to encourage piracy.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Legend 13y ago

Reminds me of a work on detecting copyright monitors. Read the introduction part to understand the risks of using torrents to stream movies. https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/fahmy/papers/PAM2011.pdf https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/fahmy/papers/PAM2011.pdf

mikewhy 13y ago

Disclaimer: I am the author of the channel. Would like to mention SS Plex[1]. It doesn't use torrents, but it allows you to stream and download content to a wider variety of devices. [1]: http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/ http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/

ronny4563 13y ago

HOW TO RIP THE MOVIES FROM POPCORN TIME TO DVD FORMATT OR BLURAY PLZ HELP DOES IT COME WITH A DVD CONVERTER IF SO PLZ SEND ME THE LINK SO THAT I MAY DOWNLOAD IT AND START USING IT RIGHT AWAY ALONG WITH LICENSE KEY AS WELL

milesf 13y ago

Time magazine, who is owned by TimeWarner, runs a story on how to watch pirate movies? TimeWarner, owner of Warner Bros and HBO? THAT TimeWarner? I smell children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnhfvGdmmw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnhfvGdmmw

programminggeek 13y ago

Am I crazy in thinking that Popcorn Time is a trap? It feels like one of those thins that is executed well enough that it will be seen as a threat and shut down ASAP. OR... it will be allowed to continue as a way to easily catch "pirates". I personally believe that movie studios would do well to follow the Pirate License(http://retromocha.com/pirate-license.html http://retromocha.com/pirate-license.html) approach, but I just don't see them ever being that forward thinking when they are making millions of dollars with the old way.