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Torrent front end Popcorn Time made streaming movies free and easy, so of course it's gone (update)
For about four days "Popcorn Time" lived, opening an easy-access door to streaming movies via torrents, but now it's gone. Aggregating info from APIs (YIFY for torrents, OpenSubtitles for subs and TheMovieDB for metadata) its developers quickly pushed out open source apps for Linux, OS X and Windows. The team explained that it's meant to be as easy as using Netflix, and insisted no legal problems were incoming because it didn't host any content locally or charge anything. Whether Hollywood studios agreed (doubtful) won't be known, as a "Goodbye" statement on the Popcorn Time website says the project is over "because we need to move on with our lives." If this sounds like a dream setup however, all is not lost -- TorrentFreak has heard from the YTS movie torrent site that it's picking up the baton and expects to release an installer "shortly." Update: As promised, the YIFY team has resurrected the Popcorn app as a living project, which can be found here. [Thanks, @MrsAngelD]
Popcorn Time lets you easily stream torrents and raises troubling questions about the future of intellectual property
Imagine your perfect Netflix. Instead of the mixed bag of occasional new releases and B-list back catalog, your streaming options rival anything you could find on iTunes. Instead of paying full price to own or a premium rate to rent, it's all just sitting there, waiting to be streamed with a click of your mouse. Gravity, Saving Mr. Banks, Nebraska, 12 Years a Slave, Man of Steel; the Netflix you've always wished for. It exists, but no one is getting paid. Welcome to Popcorn Time. Popcorn Time is a simple to use desktop app that's available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Once installed, users are provided with an attractive layout showcasing every single new hit movie you could imagine. Think of it as Blockbuster on your desktop... if Blockbuster was actually a viable business these days. The app works by playing streaming video direct from torrents. While you watch, you seed and share the torrent data to other users. You'd imagine these streams are glitchy, with inconsistent or weak quality, but each one we tested out worked perfectly. It's a dream come true for the morally ambiguous. But there's a hitch for the rest of us; it's stealing. There are a lot of grey areas that come into play. I understand there are people who will use this service to watch movies they've already paid to see in theaters or at home. There are people who will use it to watch movies they would never pay to view at home. But for every Robin Hood with a reason, there are just as many users who stream because it's easier and it's free. And Popcorn Time is easier. Unlike the current waiting game for quality titles on Netflix or the borderline criminal habit of charging $20+ dollars for special feature-free digital copies of movies online, Popcorn Time is a breeze. Everything you want to watch for free. I can't get a paid service like HBO GO to provide better than a YouTube quality picture during peak hours, but if I want to steal content on Popcorn Time I'm golden. We're at an interesting time in the digital age, where media content empires are run by businessmen who put short term profits over long term sustainability. While content providers are busy fighting to wring out every single last dollar from the customers who still pay for content, they're ignoring the next generation of viewers. Right now the first wave of the YouTube generation is entering adulthood. Large chunks of these viewers have no interest in ownership. Hell, lots of them have no interest in even paying for content. They just want what they want, when they want it. HBO GO didn't crash during the True Detective finale because of paying customers. It crashed because of the millions of people who use their friend's or parent's accounts to watch without a thought because someone else is paying for it ... and because it's easier than stealing. Since Popcorn Time is a client app that aggregates content by searching torrents it doesn't directly host itself, I doubt it's going to be easy to shut down. It helps that it's based out of Argentina and isn't subject to US laws. But even if it does get shut down, another program like it will fill its place. We're at a point now where the only option is treating piracy like the competition. Services like Netflix are allies of the movie studios. Work with them to provide better options that make piracy seem like more trouble than it's worth. Would you pay $15-20 a month for the service if it meant earlier access to recent titles, or the ability to stream commentaries for titles like Forrest Gump? That's the equivalent of each subscriber going to a see a movie in the theater or buying a moderately priced Blu-ray every month. There's money to be made, but they have to remember their audience. The content providers have to remember how easy it is to steal content right now. They have to remember that wages have been stagnant in this nation for almost two decades and when someone pays $20 dollars for a movie that sucks, that $20 lingers in their memory. And they have to remember that, unless they destroy the modern internet, it's just going to get easier and easier to find content for free. Popcorn Time is the easiest it has ever been. Content providers should take a look at their enemy, and then imagine how it will evolve in one year. Five years. Even in just six months. There are more people than ever reaching for popcorn and watching content at home. It's up to content providers to make sure it's easier to financially support the people who create the art we enjoy than it is to steal it.
Dutch ISPs overturn Pirate Bay blocking order, get pieces of eight for the trouble
In many countries, ISPs are regarded as partly culpable for the P-word that's now synonymous with the internet. We're talking, of course, about piracy. Government and legal pressure has forced several ISPs to block sites known for illegal file distribution, with The Pirate Bay being a prime target due to its popularity. Today, however, a court in The Netherlands has overturned an order compelling two of the country's major ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, based on the belief that's it's ineffective and tantamount to censorship. Local anti-piracy group BREIN, with the help of a judge and gavel, put the restriction in place in 2012 -- the ISPs appealed, and won. The Dutch court that's sided with the providers has said that a block is not only against the freedom of information, but referenced a report showing it had little impact on torrent traffic. (As most of us know, for every site that's squashed by the banhammer, there is a swarm of others providing the same services.) It gets even worse for BREIN, too, as now it's been ordered to pay 326,000 euros (around $445,000) for the trouble it's caused. That should buy at least a couple of lawyers lunch and new suits, we'd imagine.
Sweden fines pirate $650,000 for illegally sharing a single film
Sure, it's no Somalia, but Sweden's been fighting plenty of its own battles against piracy -- of the digital variety. The former home of Pirate Bay, the infamous online repository for everything the RIAA and MPAA stand against, has just fined an unnamed 28-year-old man 4.3 million krona (about $650,000) for uploading a single film to a torrent site. Granted, an anti-piracy group called Rights Alliance described the man as the country's "worst ever" pirate, according to a BBC report, so just because this fine covers only one film, he's likely responsible for ripping off plenty more. In fact, the same court that assigned the fine also convicted the man of sharing 517 other flicks -- that charge brought a rather tame punishment, including a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service.
2 Player Productions uploads 'Minecraft: The Story of Mojang' to The Pirate Bay
So, you know how the Minecraft documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang premiers on Xbox Live today, and will be available for purchase on DVD tomorrow? Well, that world premier just become a bit less exclusive, as 2 Player Productions has uploaded its film to controversial torrenting destination The Pirate Bay."We wanted to come here first because we knew the movie would end up here eventually," the listing reads, "and the best thing to do seemed to be opening a dialogue. Torrents and piracy are a way of life and it probably won't be going anywhere anytime soon. There are many people that want to punish you for that, but we have a more realistic outlook on things."2 Player Productions goes on to urge torrent-folk to at least "consider" supporting its operations by purchasing the film, either digitally or on DVD: "We're just three guys trying to make a living doing what we love. We love the world of video games, and we love making it real. If you buy the movie, you support those efforts. The reason we Kickstarted this movie in the first place was that we didn't have enough money to make it ourselves, and even then, we still put A LOT of our own money into it."
uTorrent beta app arrives on Android
Fans of the torrent-juggling desktop client can now get their downloads direct to their mobile device, because uTorrent's launched a beta app for any Android device running version 2.1 or higher. It's currently free, with RSS support, fully adjustable upload and download speeds and the ability to play games in the background as you wait for your files. There's currently no limit on download sizes either -- just so long as you can stomach the data charges.
Found Footage: MacOSXTutorials explores Mac Dropbox tips
As a Dropbox fan, I am always looking for new uses for the ubiquitous cloud storage service. Matt Fisher, whose videos have been featured on TUAW before, has produced a new video chock-full of great Mac OS X Dropbox tips. In this 10-minute clip, Matt shows: How to copy the Mac clipboard to a Dropbox text file by creating an Automator service A demo of AirDropper, an excellent way of securely requesting files from others and having them delivered via Dropbox How to email files to Dropbox using Habilis A quick way to access your Dropbox using a Chrome Extension (also available for Firefox) Start torrents from any computer or device connected to Dropbox Add PDFs to iBooks Edit files from anywhere using Droptext Some of these tips are rather straightforward, while others are incredible "why didn't I think of that" ideas that can really help make you more productive. What are your favorite things to do with Dropbox and your Mac? Leave us a comment.
Ridiculous PSP piracy numbers
Piracy is ruining the PSP. Although quality titles continue to come out on the handheld, many have been wondering: where are the software sales? Hardware has done incredibly well since the release of the redesigned PSP-2000, but PSP software still fails to make it to the top of the charts. What's to blame? It's easy to blame pirates, who take advantage of the easily circumventable security of the system. Rlan from NeoGAF took a look at just one torrent site and found the number of downloads of PSP games to be absolutely disgusting. God of War: Chains of Olympus - 94,154 Patapon - 112,183 Ratchet & Clank - Size Matters - 197,113 Crush - 48,959 LOCO ROCO - 163,904 Wipeout Pulse - 116,965 Castlevania X Chronicles - 102,354 Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops (Not Including Plus) - 231,054 Burnout Dominator - 269,486A game like Patapon shouldn't be pirated -- that only costs $20 at retail! God of War has managed to get nearly 100k downloads since its release. That's absolutely shameful. Downloading a torrented game is stealing -- just because it's easy doesn't make it right.
Transmission 0.8 released with selective file downloads, UI changes and much more
You TUAW readers have spoken loud and clear: Transmission is your favorite BitTorrent client. If you're nodding your head right now, you'll be happy to know that v0.8 of the cross-platform app has gone official, ushering in a boatload of new features and fixes for all OSes it works on, as well as some great Mac-only goodies. Before we get to the new stuff, however, I have to echo a warning on the main Transmission page: if you're in the middle of any downloads right now, finish them before upgrading; you could lose data if you jump the gun.That said, let's talk about the shiny new changes. First up, here are the new feature highlights that everyone can enjoy: Ability to selectively download and prioritize files Torrent file creation Speed and CPU load improvements Better rechecking of torrents that have many files And here are the new goodies just for Mac OS X users: Overlay when dragging torrent files, URLs, and data files onto window Ability to set an amount of time to consider a transfer stalled More progress bar colors Various smaller interface improvements Italian, Korean, and Russian translations More details and screenshots are available at the Transmission site, and be sure to swing by the Transmission donation page to show the development crew some love.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Running a bittorrent client from the iPhone
A few days ago, TorrentFreak speculated about how someone might create a bittorrent client for the iPhone. While it seems technically possible (except for that nagging "no SDK" problem, which makes it hard to get code running on there), you might question why it needs to be done - since there are plenty of good legal torrents out there, it just seems easier to get them on your Mac first, and then sync them to your iPhone. Still, I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who want to do torrenting on the fly, so maybe it'll be done eventually.In the meantime, the P2P blog has a neat tip that lets you almost get bittorrent on your iPhone. Almost every bittorrent client (including Azureus, which is what I use on my Mac) can establish a remote connection via a browser, which the iPhone has. Using a plugin for Azureus (here's one that P2P recommends, and here's another that they say might work better with the iPhone), you can start and stop downloads, and even queue up local torrents. At this point, the plugin's search function doesn't work (so you must have the torrent sitting on your local box in the first place), but in the future, you'll be able to find and queue a torrent on your iPhone, and then have it ready to go when you get home.
