Popcorn Time streams movie torrents, but maybe it’s more than that

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The image above is the first screen you see when you open Popcorn Time. The app, available on Mac, Windows and Linux, streams movies from the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol BitTorrent. The technology is similar to what old school music swapping service Napster used from about 1999 to 2001, before being shut down.1

It’s getting a lot of attention this week, much of which focuses on its copyright infringement implications. And for good reason, because according to the FAQ, while you’re watching a movie, the app is using your computer and internet connection to seed the same movie to other viewers. That means you’re sharing what you’re watching, and if what you’re watching is copyrighted or otherwise protected by your country’s intellectual property laws, you may be committing a civil violation or a crime.

Yeah, it’s like that.

I messaged the Buenos Aires-based developers of Popcorn Time on Facebook asking whether they would consider adding a Creative Commons / Public Domain channel to the app. It couldn’t hurt to include some non-infringing content, and it may be a cool new way for indie filmmakers to distribute their work.

But while copyright infringement is the easy story (and the one I would usually focus on here), there’s a more interesting angle to Popcorn Time.

It has the potential to introduce “normals” to the concept of peer-to-peer file sharing. This is similar to what BitCoin has done to the idea of digital currency. While it is the first cryptocurrency, using cryptography to secure transactions, it was not the first digital currency. Several video games allow players to trade items for virtual money and have done so for a long time.

But BitCoin brought the concept to the forefront of an international conversation. I’m not sure Popcorn Time is going to be that big or game-changing (it’s still in beta; only the third movie I tried to play, American Hustle, actually began to play. I turned it off right away, because it’s good policy for would-be attorneys not to, you know, break laws).

I do think there is real value to a proof of concept when it gets a technology usually limited to geeks into the hands of a larger audience.

And the infringement potential doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. A quick Google search for legitimate uses of BitTorrent turns up about 146,000 results.

Some totally legal uses of BitTorrent include game updates and downloads, distributing your own music, and (take note, Popcorn Time developers) public domain movie trading.

So the question is whether the extra attention Popcorn Time is getting can be turned toward the lawful uses of peer-to-peer protocols. If so, it could be the boost the system needs to become a permanent fixture in the national conversation. In other words, the interest in Popcorn Time could be peer-to-peer’s BitCoin moment.

  1. If the copyright geekery force is strong with you, consider as further reading Copyright and Peer-To-Peer Music File Sharing: The Napster Case and the Argument Against Legislative Reform, available here. ↩

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