Last month the most used Popcorn Time fork shut down, with several key developers facing legal action in Canada. The MPAA claimed one of the biggest successes in recent history but the victory may only be temporary. There are already several fixes that make the app work again and one of the original developers is currently working on a full comeback.

The main Popcorn Time fork operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name shut down its servers late October citing internal problems.

A few days later the MPAA took credit for the fall, announcing that it had filed a lawsuit against several of the developers in Canada. In response some developers backed out.

Faced with an abrupt ending several Popcorn Time users were keen to revive the defunct application. The effort has been a success, with a fully working fix now circulating on Reddit.

The fixed version uses new APIs so movies and TV-shows now show up again. Instead of using YTS as a movie provider the revived application uses TorrentsAPI, and the TV-show feed has been replaced by a custom API.

The Reddit fix is only the start. Users of VPN.ht, the VPN service associated with Popcorn Time, were also alerted about a new update to the movie streaming application recently.

“VPN.ht Movies API FIX installed,” the message read, prompting users to restart the application.

It turns out that the VPN provider made several changes which allows users to access the Popcorn Time website and client without any issues.

Popcorn Time alert



After the fix is applied Popcorn Time becomes fully operational again, filled with the latest movies as if nothing has happened.

For now the general public can’t use their old Popcorn Time client without manually applying a fix, but this may change in the near future.

Popcorn Time developer Wally, who also founded the VPN.ht service, informs TorrentFreak that he could revive Popcorn Time to its full glory.

“I am still considering a full comeback, I just do not want to release a half working version,” Wally says.

The developer, who controls both the official Twitter account and mailing list, first wants to make sure that all domain names are out of the MPAA’s reach. This is a concern, as the Canadian lawsuit is still ongoing.

Wally is not listed as a defendant in the Canadian lawsuit but his name was mentioned in the complaint. In addition, the VPN.ht company was mentioned in both the claim and injunction.

Instead of fighting Popcorn Time, Wally believes the MPAA should embrace its concept and technology.

“The popularity of Popcorn Time should be an example for the MPAA to a build a future streaming platform that will be open to the entire world,” Wally says.

Lawsuits or not, it’s clear that the technology is hard to stop. Even now that the original sources no longer work, people can still use the application as a basic torrent streaming client, manually loading torrents into it.

The MPAA is not going to be pleased with the plans to relaunch the popular Popcorn Time fork. However, neutral spectators may want to get the popcorn out, as this saga is far from over.