MPAA: It's Injunction Time for Popcorn Time

The Motion Picture Association of America was celebrating court orders in Canada and New Zealand it said will take a bite out of massive copyright infringement.

MPAA said that developers of Popcorn Time's "official" fork (an offshoot of the open source Popcorn Time software) and BitTorrent site YTS, which abetted unauthorized distribution of TV shows and movies, have been shut down.

MPAA filed suit in Canada against three Canadian operators of popcorntime.io and secured an injunction against it.

It also got an interim injunction against YTS in a New Zealand court.

"Popcorntime.io, which its operators have dubbed the 'official' Popcorn Time fork, had 1.5 million unique visitors in July 2015 alone, according to comScore – and once those visitors downloaded the app, they were able to illegally watch thousands of stolen motion pictures and television shows," MPAA said in trumpeting the victories.

“This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft,” said Chris Dodd, chairman of MPAA.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.