As the unofficial Netflix for Pirates, Popcorn Time has made waves ever since it debuted back in October of 2014. With an intuitive interface that puts other BitTorrent clients to shame, Popcorn Time makes it easier than ever for users to stream their favorite TV shows and movies from within a browser or even right from their smartphones.
Not surprisingly, Popcorn Time’s arrival has been resulted in an appreciable increase in overall piracy rates across the globe. Underscoring the threat that Popcorn Time poses to traditional industry revenue streams, Netflix a few months ago even called out the service by name, painting it as a strategic threat to its core business.
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With reports of individual Popcorn Time users now being subjected to legal prosecution, the team behind the popular service has spoken up and laid the blame for its success squarely on Hollywood. In a letter sent to Torrent Freak, Popcorn Time said that its success is the direct result of Hollywood essentially being too greedy to release a similar service of its own. Though not referenced in the letter, it appears that Popcorn Time seems to fancy itself as a Napster-esque entity whose popularity rests at the feet of industry stagnation.
The letter reads in part:
People are ready to pay a fee, but a lot of them currently refuse to pay for a petty catalog with country-specific restrictions.
The price can also be a hurdle for some people: $20 a month is not the same in Uganda and the United States. But obviously, the most problematic issue is the complete lack of legal availability in some places.
Why would people in France wait two years to see a movie that’s already being broadcasted in the US, when they both are paying almost the same amount of money?
…
Maybe it is time to consider the will of the people and offer them a legal, complete and useful service, no matter where they were born, instead of trying to punish people for… well, for wanting the see the content artists and industries are offering.
Currently, piracy is fulfilling the demand of the people because the industry fails at the transition into the modern age. We think it’s as simple as that.
Clearly, Popcorn Time has no intention of closing up shop anytime soon.
