Popcorn Time faces ban from UK by the High Court, following complaints from the Hollywood Motion Picture Association over pirated contented being freely shared and downloaded. It has been the first judicial system in the world to make things clear legally by deciding to ban websites that provide download links to the application all throughout the country.
The question that lies is with applications being developed and modified frequently, how effective will the ban be? There are high chances that the circulation of the application will continue in an underground manner, which has been seen worldwide ever since the app was launched all across the globe.
April 28th witnessed the judicial system of UK order five major broadband service providers to block five websites that provide download service for the application. The providers include Sky, EE, BT, Virgin and TalkTalk.
This seems to be a short lived victory for the judicial set up in UK as banning 5 websites streaming Popcorn Time will result into the same being streamed by various other websites in no time. This was expected to happen sometime sooner than it would originally have taken. The process got a boost due to the verdict passed by the court regarding the ban of 5 websites.
Experts predict that Popcorn Time might not be streamed by any of the banned service providers, but will be done by smaller providers outside UK, which does not allow the UK judicial system to have any control over the service provided by them via internet.
The legal scenario with Popcorn Time is a little ironical in nature. The developer of the freebie application is not liable in any which manner, the person truly liable according to the law is its users. If the user is using the app with his own wish and will the developer can walk off free. In spite of knowing that the app is facing copyrights issue, users have continued using the app and the usage remains same if not increased.