It all seemed over for Popcorn Time a few weeks ago when its servers went offline after charges were filed against several of its developers. However, a new wave of devs has surfaced and it seems that the project has been rejuvenated.
The Motion Picture Association of America claims responsibility for bringing down Popcorn time -- both the portal Popcorntime.io and its servers. The association also revealed that several Canadian devs were charged before the courts due to their contribution to the controversial streaming site. The said developers subsequently backed out and left the project.
However, it's just one fork that got shut down. There are other variants managed by an entirely different set of developers. One of these is Popcorn Time Community Edition (PTCE), a new and improved version of Popcorn Time that was established amidst the MPAA's legal threats.
The new group of developers established the .io fork fix PTCE, which now has gained attention and support from online communities, particularly on Reddit. The new fork even has a new home, Popcorntime.ml, which went online just last week.
"Now we have taken it a step further and created a website where people can find more information about the Community edition project and links to the working installers or other relevant information," says the PTCE team. "In the beginning it was just so people still could use the version from Popcorntime.io and continue to enjoy this great software. But as long as people use it and we have people to drive this project forwards it will probably continue to evolve in future as well."
Resilient and poised as the team sounds, the fact is it already lost a couple of members. Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland (BREIN), a Dutch anti-piracy initiative, reported that it got a hold of the developers and came to an agreement to either cease work on the BitTorrent streaming platform or pay almost €2,200 or around $2380 per day.
While the PTCE team refused to comment on the legal aspects of the platform, it also stated that Popcorn Time will probably never go away even with the efforts of the MPAA, BREIN and other similar organizations.
"Instead of fighting this great software they should embrace it," the PTCE team says.
Note that the devs from the main fork, Popcorntime.io, is working to go online again.
