AfterDawn: News

R.I.P. Popcorn Time

The most popular version of Popcorn Time appears to be down and out for the count.

Following last week's drama where half of the founding members left Popcorn Time over concerns about the built-in VPN's revenue, the servers and domain for popcorntime.io are down permanently.



According to TF, the operators of the site tried to transfer the ownership of the domain but the registrar Gandi denied the changes. That was the beginning of the end.

"I shutdown all the servers, there is nothing I can do anymore. I deleted any logs that can be harmful for any other dev," founder 'Wally' added.

There are other forks of Popcorn Time available out there but none with the fan base or features of the former .io variant.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Oct 2015 15:03

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• 10 comments

• hearme0

  GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool.

  24.10.2015 18:44 #1

• fb2075

  Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. But the program could still get those people in trouble since it uses bit torrent which forces you to share what you're downloading.
  

  25.10.2015 16:12 #2

• SProdigy

  Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. I'm with you 1000%. I'm only likely to "acquire" something if it's a movie I've already paid 100x over to see via other medium, namely those movies and shows that have been played over and over, or are played via free TV and then they try to sucker you into buying again! I have plenty of outlets via going to theaters to rentals on Amazon, a pay TV subscription, Netflix, etc. This "one more" mentality is awful, but those people who never even contribute "one" to the industry and want to basically steal, can in your words, rot in hell!

  26.10.2015 13:29 #3

• hearme0

  Originally posted by fb2075: Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. But the program could still get those people in trouble since it uses bit torrent which forces you to share what you're downloading. Precisely.
  
  It happened to my wife while she decided to give the television episode download a go rather than the movie portion of PopcornTime.
  
  She downloaded Selfie, which had already been cancelled and I got a DMCA takedown notice identifying me. Peerblock cripples this program unlike the average torrent client like (utorrent, Vuse, etc)

  26.10.2015 15:54 #4

• Bozobub

  Originally posted by SProdigy: Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. I'm with you 1000%. I'm only likely to "acquire" something if it's a movie I've already paid 100x over to see via other medium, namely those movies and shows that have been played over and over, or are played via free TV and then they try to sucker you into buying again! I have plenty of outlets via going to theaters to rentals on Amazon, a pay TV subscription, Netflix, etc. This "one more" mentality is awful, but those people who never even contribute "one" to the industry and want to basically steal, can in your words, rot in hell!
  Thing is, pirates, in general, actually BUY MORE PRODUCT than most media consumers, according to several independent studies. And of those who don't, a large portion simply never could afford the content in the 1st place, putting another nail in the coffin of "lost revenue". A search for "pirates buy more content" will bring up thousands upon thousands of relevant links.
  
  Peerblock, by the way, is damn near worthless; it's merely a placebo. Remember, anyone at all can read the blocklists, including those you're trying to block; they're not stupid.

  27.10.2015 13:57 #5

• SProdigy

  Originally posted by Bozobub: Originally posted by SProdigy: Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. I'm with you 1000%. I'm only likely to "acquire" something if it's a movie I've already paid 100x over to see via other medium, namely those movies and shows that have been played over and over, or are played via free TV and then they try to sucker you into buying again! I have plenty of outlets via going to theaters to rentals on Amazon, a pay TV subscription, Netflix, etc. This "one more" mentality is awful, but those people who never even contribute "one" to the industry and want to basically steal, can in your words, rot in hell!
  Thing is, pirates, in general, actually BUY MORE PRODUCT than most media consumers, according to several independent studies. And of those who don't, a large portion simply never could afford the content in the 1st place, putting another nail in the coffin of "lost revenue". A search for "pirates buy more content" will bring up thousands upon thousands of relevant links.
  
  Peerblock, by the way, is damn near worthless in general; it's merely a placebo. Remember, anyone at all can read the blocklists, including those you're trying to block; they're not stupid. If I can't afford an iPhone, it's not like I can announce I'm going into an Apple Store, putting one in my pocket and walk out with it!
  
  I've already seen people discuss watching torrents for Star Wars when it comes out.
  
  That's irritating to see when you are a service/entertainment provider. No one values your work because it's not a physical item they can hold in their hands, but it's no different. It's still theft.
  
  IDK why some find it acceptable to steal movies or music. I understand if you already own the product, say you own Movie X on disc and you want a nice digital copy for your phone but don't want to pay again (sometimes more than the original) for it. I do think that's a form of the industry stealing by charging over and over for the same stuff (Christmas movies, I'm looking at you!)
  
  But to otherwise admit you will blatantly steal something brand new without contributing a cent to it, is just wrong.

  27.10.2015 14:02 #6

• Bozobub

  No one is arguing that pirating content is moral. That's all you, currently. But first off, it's also NOT theft, it's - quite specifically by law - an intellectual-property violation, therefore civil, not criminal in nature. Mischaracterizing the act won't help a thing; it hasn't yet, now has it?
  
  What I am telling you is that pirates are also one of the, if not THE biggest revenue-making group(s) for content producers, no matter what those producers feel "in their gut", and several well-done studies back me up on this. The numbers are pretty hard to deny. We're talking about consumption of paid content anywhere from 3x to 10x+ as much as those who don't pirate; those are pretty damn big numbers!
  
  No, piracy is not particularly moral. But it's also not even remotely near the disaster content producers would like to believe it is; some studies have it as a net positive, in fact, with these consumption numbers in mind. Sorry, but it's not some simple, black-and-white morality play...

  27.10.2015 14:30 #7

• ThePastor

  Why do people steal content?
  
  Maybe it has something to do with countless things like this:
  http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.c...alties#comments
  

  Oh, Im sorry... Did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?

  27.10.2015 21:18 #8

• hearme0

  Originally posted by Bozobub: Originally posted by SProdigy: Originally posted by hearme0: GOOD!!!!!!!
  
  No R.I.P. either.........this program deserves a ROT IN HELL!
  
  Again, I'm not an angel and I do SOME downloading but I buy a boatload of movies and believe that this program was illicit on a whole new level. It was a massive infringement and anyone that voices up support for this program under the pretense of "Hollywood makes crap so I am justified for rampantly pirating whatever" is a true blue immature fool. I'm with you 1000%. I'm only likely to "acquire" something if it's a movie I've already paid 100x over to see via other medium, namely those movies and shows that have been played over and over, or are played via free TV and then they try to sucker you into buying again! I have plenty of outlets via going to theaters to rentals on Amazon, a pay TV subscription, Netflix, etc. This "one more" mentality is awful, but those people who never even contribute "one" to the industry and want to basically steal, can in your words, rot in hell!
  Thing is, pirates, in general, actually BUY MORE PRODUCT than most media consumers, according to several independent studies. And of those who don't, a large portion simply never could afford the content in the 1st place, putting another nail in the coffin of "lost revenue". A search for "pirates buy more content" will bring up thousands upon thousands of relevant links.
  
  Peerblock, by the way, is damn near worthless; it's merely a placebo. Remember, anyone at all can read the blocklists, including those you're trying to block; they're not stupid. I agree!
  
  Except Peerblock my friend. It's fully functional, prevented me from EVER receiving DMCA notice, except the one time my wife download tv show Selfie via PopcornTime she DID NOT use Peerblock.
  
  Look, peeps can say what they want about Peerblock but I'm a network engineer and my domain/network is kept meticulously secure and I vett everything to the fullest possible extent.
  
  To call it a "placebo" is unjustified. I've tested and have been using for over 4 years now..actively blocking 2.4 billion IP addresses. Never been notified or busted except the aforementioned incident where PB was not used because it cripples PopcornTime.
  
  Trust me..........IT WORKS. Besides, it blocks WAN IPs and 99.9% of people can't just call their provider and get a new IP.......even if it's static, most obtain a LIMITED pool of IPs and have to use those and good luck spoofing an IP address. Website name yes but IP address, not so much.

  28.10.2015 15:25 #9

• Bozobub

  And Peerbloock blocks legit websites quite often, and the blocklists are riddled with errors, out-of-date entries, and plain garbage.
  
  Let me put it this way: Just google "Is peerblock OR peerguardian effective" (keep the caps, it's a boolean; Peerguardian is simply a precursor to Peerblock). You can try different synonyms for "effective", such as "useful". for example, to get a few different articles.
  
  The consensus? "Hardly." It actively harms BitTorrent transfers (by blocking literally bilions of IP addresses) without providing anything resembling safety. If anything, the false sense of security it engenders is rather dangerous.
  
  I'll note: I never receive DMCA notices or the like either, and I don't use the program. You are mistaking correlation with causation, that simple; this is also how placebos WORK, so it's not overly surprising.
  
  The bottom line: If it makes you feel better, use it, but it does not improve your security. You're gonna need to shell out for a VPN, pretty much, if you want anything even remotely approaching secure P2P traffic, or perhaps a seedbox.
  
  Edit -> By the by, anyone with a router and cable modem can gain a new IP simply by changing their router's MAC address, then rebooting both it and the modem. *pouf!* New IP! And that's most of the broadband in the US, homes.

  28.10.2015 15:50 #10