Sinds mijn recensie vorig jaar heeft PopcornTime een turbulante ontwikkeling gemaakt, want de gevestigde orde (lees TV zenders en de filmindustrie) doen er alles aan om dit erg handige stukje software te verbieden. Zo is niet alleen Tim Kuik van stichting Brein(dood) hard bezig het programma te weren in Nederland, maar ook in Engeland is dit nu door de rechter verboden en moeten alle websites hier naar toe geblockt worden. Niet het iets uitmaakt als je een VPN, Proxie, TOR of 2iP gebruikt. Bovendien is er nu ook een wildgroei aan versies die vaak vol zitten met mallware en andere crap. Meer over deze uitspraak kan je trouwens hier lezen.

he Motion Picture Association has obtained a High Court order requiring UK ISPs to block access to five sites that offer the popular Popcorn Time software. In addition, the Internet providers must block several more torrent and streaming sites.

popcorntFollowing a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, UK Internet providers Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin, BT and EE are currently required to restrict access to many of the world's largest torrent sites and streaming portals.

More than 100 websites have been blocked in recent years and today the court issued the first injunction against domains that offer no direct links, but only software.

The order, obtained today by Hollywood's Motion Picture Association, targets five popular Popcorn Time forks: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to.

In his order Judge Birss notes that the Popcorm Time software has little to no legal use. Instead, he mentions that it's mostly used to download and stream pirated movies and TV-shows.

"It is manifest that the Popcorn Time application is used in order to watch pirated content on the internet and indeed it is also manifest that that is its purpose. No-one really uses Popcorn Time in order to watch lawfully available content," Judge Birss writes.

"The point of Popcorn Time is to infringe copyright. The Popcorn Time application has no legitimate purpose," he adds.