Popcorn Time Community Edition: MPAA Shuts Down PTCE Next
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the trade association representing major Hollywood studios, is not done with Popcorn Time yet. In a recent development, the MPAA is reportedly still going after Popcorn Time developers, this time specifically targeting those behind its Community Edition.
The Popcorn Time Community Edition (PTCE) is considered to be a Popcorn Time spin-off. PTCE has a dedicated website, Popcorntime.ml. The website is the work of a team of developers who started with a fully operational fix for the .io fork they found on Reddit to which they added their own fork later on.
The new fork quickly gained a large userbase, as many users of the Popcorn Time fork that were shut down got wind of it. But the PTCE's virtual life was to be cut short as pressure from the MPAA has resulted in this fork getting shut down as well.
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On Monday, Dec. 14, both the PTCE's website and its GitHub repository went offline. An insider has revealed to TorrentFreak that several of those involved in the project were "getting bugged" by the Hollywood film trade association.
"The people behind the official CE sites have been contacted by MPAA for some time now," says Luretrix2k, who's a moderator at the Popcorn Time subreddit. "They decided to take everything down and start all over again with a new strategy/game plan for the official site and GitHub repository to avoid this problem in the future."
The new fork came into existence earlier this month. The PTCE went live shortly after the MPAA shut down the main Popcorn Time fork, PopcornTime.io. Another fork, Popcorn-time.se, though remains live.
But even though the PTCE has been shut down and may never ever return, TorrentFreak believes other developers will just continue where PTCE left off.
"Popcorn Time will probably never go away, despite the efforts made by organizations such as BREIN, the MPAA, and others. Instead of fighting this great software they should embrace it," the PTCE team told TorrentFreak at the time.
