Popcorn Time developers disappear one by one

Popcorn Time was one of the most discussed topics over the past month, its authors were happy to talk with users and openly expressed their position. However, something radically changed quite recently. Previously, sociable developers involved in this project, erased their work, subsided, disappeared or all at once. It is difficult to pretend that nothing happens.

Phenomenon Popcorn Time does not need an explanation (see on Habré ), I note only that this application has great rocked the boat immediately after launch in March.

At the meeting, Ivanov asked:
- Where are Malinovsky, crabs and Moscow sausage?
')
After the break, Sidorov asks a question:
- I am not interested in where Malinovsky, crabs and
Moscow sausage. But where did Ivanov go, which is about this
asked?

(one of the formulations of a bearded Soviet joke)

In a nutshell, Popcorn didn’t provide anyway. The application was a catalog of existing films in open access (on torrents), and this catalog was made extremely well - it was loved by both veterans of illegal file sharing and novice housewives. Unfortunately, very soon the shop was closed. In mid-March, the original fathers, the developers said they are winding down their activities (see on Habré ).

“Popcorn Time will be off today. Not because we are tired or we’ve run out of enthusiasm, we just want to enjoy life further and this topic doesn’t concern us anymore, ” they wrote.

“As a result, this experiment moved us to the epicenter of battles on piracy against copyright, thus making us the main goal of invisible fraudsters, which ultimately could have a negative impact on our lives and on what we love the most. And somehow this made us uneasy. "

Of course, we can never get convincing evidence of who specifically threatened developers with criminal prosecution, since none of them wants to give any evidence. However, after a little thought, you can guess that most likely they were the owners of the content that was heard on the ball through Popcorn Time - Hollywood.



Since the project code was completely open, Popcorn Time had every chance to return from nothing and it soon happened. Without long waiting, many alternative forks of a popular application began to appear on the surface. The very first candidate for successors was made by a programmer from YTS / YIFY, although it later turned out that the application would become an independent project, without having to take meta data from the server.

The fork has been developing for some time; several contributors were involved in it, including some of those who worked on the original project. And just after the new version of the client was released at the end of March, something inexplicable began to happen. Suddenly, the application disappeared from the Github repository, the previously friendly developer was silent. He was super-sociable, eagerly participated in discussions, but after him there was not a single message or line in the chat.

Something is happening. People can not so drastically change their character in a couple of hours, unless under pressure from outside. The information that we gradually received through different channels simply did not correspond to reality.

During the following weeks we communicated with other programmers who slowly sawed their forks of the application. The main developer of the project Popcorn-Time.tv told us that he created his website immediately after the above mentioned somewhere has gone.

“A couple of days ago .. [..] ... that guy disappeared, his repository and the site were sequentially drunk ,” he explained.

Then, literally a couple of days later, this developer, ready to launch an alternative to the mysteriously disappeared Popcorn Time, suddenly changed his course. Suddenly, his version also disappeared from Github. And, after the previous author of the fork, this also disappeared from the radar!



Attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. Emails on behalf of TorrentFreak remained unanswered. Then, just yesterday, he suddenly turned up in a thread of Popcorn Time discussions on Reddit.

“All you need to know is that I'm still alive and busy with other projects,” he wrote . “I really can’t tell you more, but now I’m not connected to the popcorn-time project.”

In parallel with these events, the developer of another Popcorn Time fork contacted us. Like everyone else, he was extremely interested and serious. But then, after a couple of days, I disappeared from the same way. The lively correspondence in the mail was replaced by one-sided silence on his part.

And although we do not have any weighty evidence to say exactly what caused the disappearance or closure of all these enthusiasts, we can well understand from the circumstances what is actually happening. These guys had one common beginning - talent, enthusiasm, eloquence, and an irresistible desire to push their projects forward. As a result, even the most sociable and friendly refuse to give any public comments.

Why does everything change literally overnight? We will never get an official response, but as they say, if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then ...

Translation by Xlab. If you wish, you can notify about errors in PM, I will be very grateful.
***
PS There already on Reddit they suggested that it would be cool for TorrentFreak to make its repository with code and be active, like sawing fork. Well, and then find out who speaks so politely with the developers. Catching the beast to bait.