This story about a U.K. court ordering Popcorn Time blocked has been knocking around in my brain for a couple of days now. When stuff knocks around in my head for days, chances are it will end up in written form, right here. So here we go.

It is not an absurd ruling, although I certainly take issue with the claim that, as the MPAA alleged, Popcorn Time “has no legitimate purpose and it only serves to infringe copyright.” There are plenty of places to find legal torrents. I know most people are using Popcorn Time for piracy though, because they ask me if it is illegal, since it “seems a lot like Netflix.”

It is definitely illegal to use Popcorn Time or any other software to download, disseminate, view or otherwise consume any movie, song or other media for which you would otherwise have to pay money.

This is the insightful bit of the article, though:

For media companies, stamping out Popcorn Time has been a virtually impossible task. The free, open-source apps, originally created by an anonymous group of developers in Argentina, are now hosted on multiple sites and allegedly have several hundred volunteer programmers working on various iterations, including mobile versions of the apps.

Here is an interactive version of the graph displayed above, showing worldwide search volume from the preceding twelve months:

//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=netflix,+HBO,+Popcorn+Time&date=today+12-m&cmpt=q&tz&tz&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=700&h=400

Netflix is doing just fine, for now. But HBO, excepting a bump in mid-April coinciding with the increased promotion of their new HBO Now service, is losing ground to Popcorn Time in worldwide search.

Here is the same type of search volume comparison, but this time zoomed in to the preceding 90 days and including only HBO and Popcorn Time:

//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=HBO,+Popcorn+Time&date=today+3-m&cmpt=q&tz&tz&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=700&h=400

HBO does not have as wide a lead as Netflix, but the time to react to stiff competition is not after that compeitition has matched or overtaken you. For Netflix and HBO, that time is right now. Netflix has massive infrastructure and an increasingly impressive library of original productions. And HBO has NBO Now, uh, now, which unbundles the premium channel from cable subscriptions. These are both good reactions to the rise of competitors, legitimate and otherwise. But those strategies are not enough.

The takeaway? Popcorn Time has become similar to Anonymous or, albeit a more controversial comparison, Al Qaeda. That is, it is not a single organization answering to a traditional leadership hierarchy. It is a splintered collection of rogue outfits, some more law-respecting than others, none “in charge.” It may represent the next step in business strategy companies like Netflix and HBO will need to take to continue their success.

The person or company that comes up with a way to legally and technically monetize torrent consumption of popular media at scale will be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Google.¹

Now, if you will excuse me I am going to go think about how to legally and technically monetize torrent consumption of popular media at scale.

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.