A new group of Popcorn Time developers has officially launched a "Community Edition" of the popular application. What started as a relatively simple fix to get the most used fork working again has turned into a fork of its own, challenging the MPAA's efforts to bring Popcorn Time down.

A few weeks ago the main Popcorn Time fork, operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name, shut down its servers.

The MPAA took credit for the fall announcing that it had filed a lawsuit against several of the developers in Canada. In response to these legal threats several key developers backed out.

However, that doesn’t mean the application is no longer available. Several other forks (variants) are still online and more recently a group of new developers launched the Popcorn Time Community Edition.

It all started with a fully working fix for the .io fork which was circulated on Reddit, as we reported earlier. This gained a lot of attention, which prompted the developers to start their own website.

This week Popcorntime.ml launched, which offers instructions on how to revive the .io fork plus fully operational installers for the new and improved Popcorn Time Community Edition (PTCE).

“Now we have taken it a step further and created a web site where people can find more information about the Community edition project and links to the working installers or other relevant information,” the PTCE teams tells TF.

The new group of developers are not involved with the .io fork, they simply revived it. If there’s enough interest, the team will probably continue to expand and improve their own version.

“In the beginning it was just so people still could use the version from Popcorntime.io and continue to enjoy this great software. But as long as people use it and we have people to drive this project forwards it will probably continue to evolve in future as well,” they tell us.

Although the PTCE team is just a few weeks old, it has already lost two members. Last week Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN announced that it settled with two developers, who risk a €2,000 per day fine if they violate their agreement.

The PTCE team mourns their loss, but is not eager to comment on the legal side of the project.

“We wish the two developers all the best and we really miss them, other than that we have no comment on that or the legal debate regarding this software,” they say.

The message to copyright holders and anti-piracy outfits is clear though. Legal pressure or not, the Popcorn Time phenomenon is not going away anytime soon.

“Popcorn Time will probably never go away, despite the efforts made by organizations such as BREIN, the MPAA and others. Instead of fighting this great software they should embrace it,” PTCE tells TF.

In addition to the new Community Edition, the original Popcorntime.io fork is still working on a comeback of its own.

The whack-a-mole continues.