Popcorn Time, the app that was as soon as fashionable for making pirating films as simple as watching Netflix, has shut down. Its authentic builders took the service down and deserted the mission merely a number of days after it launched in 2014. However because the mission was open supply, different builders had been in a position decide up the place they left off, and it’s been killed and revived a number of extra occasions ever since. It stays to be seen whether or not Popcorn Time is now gone for good, nevertheless it seems to be like the largest contributor to its most up-to-date demise is the dwindling curiosity within the app.
On its web site, the builders posted a graph of “popcorn time” searches over the previous seven years. Whereas the app loved a ton of searches within the months after its launch in 2015, the graph reveals a pointy decline in curiosity by 2016. Its recognition continued to wane, and it by no means actually recovered after that, at the least primarily based on Google Developments.
In response to Bloomberg, the group behind Popcorn Time introduced its closure in an e-mail. Whereas they didn’t say whether or not legislation enforcement motion was an element behind their choice to close down the app this time round, Popcorn Time has had brushes with the legislation up to now. The unique model could have closed after authorities received concerned, and Hollywood studios even sued particular person customers who allegedly downloaded and shared copies of films illegally.
Builders related to Popcorn Time beforehand talked about how they’re not answerable for piracy themselves, as a result of the service doesn’t truly host any content material. As an alternative, it relied on a peer-to-peer sharing system and solely offered a method for customers to entry content material hosted on different folks’s computer systems.
Editor’s word: This text initially appeared on Engadget.
