Is Popcorn Time really the entertainment industry’s latest nemesis?

Popcorn Time, the application for watching films and series free that was created by a group of Argentinean hackers and closed initially in March 2014, although it continued life as an open source project with several forks, has announced that it is now available for iOS. It lacks a few esthetic details but works phenomenally well, and can be installed in any device without the need of jailbreaking.

The app has been available for Android since May 2014. Now it even has Chromecast support in both formats, so users can search for content to watch on their mobile devices, and send them easily to their television sets through a simple device that costs just thirty five euros. It has an elegant interface, it’s easy to use, and it seems to be bomb proof, and of course the entertainment industry now has new nemesis to replace the much-pursued and fruitlessly blocked The Pirate Bay. And with an additional problem: Popcorn Time is not a web page that can be closed or blocked, but an app that streams content to the viewers using torrents.. extremely difficult to stop.

Popcorn Time is simply a new approach to watching unauthorized content in step with the times: there is no longer any need to look for torrents or scroll down pages of magnet links filled with porn banners… all you need to do is install a program in your computer or an app on your smartphone, and then look through a pretty complete catalogue with an attractive interface. The experience is so good that Netflix is now describing Popcorn Time as its “most dangerous competitor”. More than 100,000 downloads a day would seem to confirm that this is indeed the new threat.

And even better, they produce self-promotional videos filled with references to movies and the internet culture:

Can it be stopped? For the moment, the entertainment industry’s response seem to be more of the same: law enforcement, political lobbying to get laws changed, blocking, etc. Its availability on Apple machines will doubtless set off a cat and mouse game with the company, which will eventually lead to the outcome that it’s bad business to try to stop the advance of technology.

And of course the real answer remains the same as it always has been: the only way to fight these kinds of developments is through the market. Unauthorized downloads will only disappear when the official sites are able to offer a wide range of products at low prices, meaning that users don’t need to go to others. When we are finally able to pay a price that we consider reasonable for services that allow us to watch what we want, when we want, where we want, and how we want, whether through subscription, pay-per-view, or free with advertising, without being subject to geographical and time constraints, and that provide an easy-to-use experience, like Popcorn Time. While the industry continues to block the arrival of such a scenario, there will always be any number of options that will appeal to a large number of consumers, effectively removing them from the market.

So, no Popcorn Time is not the entertainment industry’s new nemesis. The entertainment industry is, and has been for some time, its own nemesis.

(En español, aquí)