Popcorn-app no longer on GitHub | Hacker News Reader

Popcorn-app no longer on GitHub

github.com

84 pointsGyran71 comments

I think Github has nothing to do with all this, for two reasons:

First, because only the https://github.com/popcorn-team/popcorn-app has been removed. There are plenty of forks of the original popcorn floating around github, some of them with very recent commits (see the network timeline). It seems unlikely that github would remove just that one repo and leave all these others around.

Second, because as noted by some commenters, the website of that fork http://popcorn.cdnjd.com/ is also down. But it is not just down: the whole A/CNAME record does not exist anymore! Digging a bit deeper, you can see that the nameservers of that domain are hosted by Cloudfare.

It seems very unlikely to me that Github and Cloudfare would act so well coordinated in taking down an application and its associated resources, yet they completely ignore all those forks.

That makes me think that this is more of a personal issue. Either someone with all the keys got hacked and that's the result, or someone has been intimidated enough (through legal or other means) to shut everything down.

Anyway, time will tell. Don't start migrating all your github repos elsewhere yet ;P

Developer here.

I woke up this morning and everything was down. We are two developper on this project with admin right on the popcorn-team organisation. The other developper (jduncanator) is the only one with access to the web hosting.

That said, lets not speculate. I wasn't able to contact the other developer yet since he is in another timezone and probably in bed at that time.

Most likely, github has nothing to do with all that. Github staff were well aware of popcorn time and starred it many time. If they would have took down our project I think they would have took down all the forks with it. Which is not the case.

I'm trying to get the repo up again. Meanwhile I have my personal repo up to date: https://github.com/isra17/popcorn-app.

I have archived the latest copy from your personal repo in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/popcorn-app-master

Your own latest release is 0.2.6, though.

The tags were lost. Master branch is still 0.2.8.1.

GitHub was not involved in removing the repository.

Thanks a lot Zach. I was pretty sure that Github was not involved in any way with this. Your support team has been helpfull by answering any of my question. Now I just need to deal with internal drama and get the project back...

Thanks for chiming in Zach.

Forks of https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app are still online. Beware the speculations until you hear a statement from either the developers or github.

I don't know anything about popcorn app specifically, but you'll normally see a message (instead of a 404 page) if GitHub removed a repository.

the Yify fork is gone as well. https://github.com/Yify/popcorn-app

That one(Yify) redirected to the other(popcorn-team) one, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm not sure when the site was updated, but it looks like it goes the way of muxtape - http://getpopcornti.me/

Edit: Looks like this was written almost a couple weeks ago (March 14th, 2014 according to the time stamp on their medium post https://medium.com/p/93f890b8c9f4)

Ya those are from the original version, that the developers shut down on March 14th. The GitHub that the OP linked is the link to the new GitHub fork that is/was under active development. Not sure what happened but the saga seems to be continuing

No matches for popcorn in GitHub's DMCA request repo yet:

https://github.com/github/dmca/search?q=popcorn

A takedown of a GitHub repository also takes down forks. Therefore it wasn't a GitHub-actioned DMCA takedown.

That's not necessarily the case. Last month yowsup was taken down due to a dmca complaint by WhatsApp, but my fork of it was still up.

The great thing about open source code is that no matter how many Git repos get taken down, someone somewhere has the latest clone and can still share it. Once software is created and shared openly, there is no amount of threats or coordinated destruction of source code that will eliminate it completely.

Deleted comment

This is a statement from the first developers, the first time it shut down.

The one this is all about is a fork that was in active development.

This is why I always clone repos to disk.

How else do you clone it?

clone to cloud saas of course

This one[1] was fork just after the original closed. I guess it's the most up to date.

[1] https://github.com/isra17/popcorn-app

I prefer XBMCtorrent over Popcorn-app anyway. It even supports search from within the XBMC menu, multiple trackers, can be controlled via remote on a HTPC etc.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736

I’d gladly pay for Netflix but it is not available in my country and this is the closest thing I have found so far.

Thought experiment: Are pulling down a server and eradicating a source repository actions we can imagine a developer performing after receiving a visit/message from a lawyer and/or FBI agents? I find that at least as likely as nefarious actions by Github. (I further postulate a well-scrubbed email cache and the sudden deletion of vast quantities of porn, but I have an active imagination.)

Unfortunately I think that this was an act of releasing pressure from multiple person(s) that are against torrenting copyrighted content. Maybe we popped the popcorn too long... burning and leaving us hungry for more. Maybe we should try a better alternative?

This looks to be the latest that is being worked on, but I could be wrong https://github.com/popcorn-org/popcorn-app

Still exists afaik: https://github.com/popcorn-time/popcorn-app

That is the original, now discontinued one. OP link is to the updated version.

Link in the OP is 404ing for me.

That is the point of the post.

what were the differences?

popcorn-time vs. popcorn-team

Well, besides that obvious fact.

For those of us who have not been following it's development; were there any noted improvements of the new (now-missing) version over the original?

I haven't been super up to date with the code but yes. Lots of bugs and faster and better error handling in the newer versions. Improved for every week.

http://popcorn.cdnjd.com/ seems to be down.

Is it against GitHub's TOS? I have a web app, http://www.moviemagnet.net, that's a movie torrent aggregator that I was going to throw up on GitHub after I wrote some integration tests. It would be shocking to me that they would remove the repo since they weren't technically serving torrents.

The TOS don't make any promises:

GitHub does not pre-screen Content, but GitHub and its designee have the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to refuse or remove any Content that is available via the Service.

and

We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and Accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property or these Terms of Service.

That would explain it. It's remarkable how ambiguous TOSs in general are. I can see from a business perspective how Github was probably pressured from outside source, MPAA, to remove the application that could be used as a conduit to illegally download magnet links. This is such a slippery slope though...

I would say the terms are one sided (at least on this issue). I don't think they are ambiguous.

I don't think it is really a slippery slope either, there would be a bunch of new law needed to make it so that offering a platform for publication carried the obligation to publish things (a lot of it focused on protecting the service provider from liability).

This particular TOS part is not ambiguous. It means "we can delete anything".

> "...and its designee..."

Can someone explain to me whom this portion of the clause refers to?

Anyone who Github has said it does ("designated").

IANAL, but I would guess this is effectively to allow non-employees like contractors to do the removal legally.

Anything can be considered offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable by some people how do you define such subjective views.

There Terms of service are very vague.

Of course.

You cannot anticipate all future issues but need to be prepared to have the means to act if it creates liability/risk for you (as a company).

TOS in general are vague but encompassing. I guess that's the point though

>> "It would be shocking to me that they would remove the repo since they weren't technically serving torrents."

I don't think it matters if they're serving torrents or not. The movie industry will likely sue them anyway and GitHub probably doesn't want to be involved in any way.

If they removed the tracker file then nothing can be wrong. It's not illegal to stream torrents. Just to stream copyrighted torrents.

I will move away from github if this is true! First the sexism and now this!

The point was that the MPAA can make life very expensive for GitHub if even if they don't have legal footing.

Seems super similar (not to say a clone) to movies.io

not only the repo, their website is down, http://popcorn.cdnjd.com/

I saw a news about this. Is it the successor? http://www.time4popcorn.eu/

I would not trust that.. I want the source code! I hope this is a late april joke

maybe try one that's not getting taken down every other week?

http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/

Also, coolest 404 page ever!

First C-plus-Equality, now this.

It's growing increasingly apparent that GitHub is not about open hosting, but a company that has no spines and a tendency towards political self-censorship.

There is no evidence that Github removed this. When they do a takedown, all of the forks disappear too. Further, if it was the result of a DMCA, they make those publicly available.

C+= was not removed for "censorship", but because the commits being done there were falsely attributed (by the repository owners) to people who didn't want their names and gravatars associated with it. Bitbucket and Google Code yanked the repo for the same reason.

who got the latest fork?! :D Need to clone asap

Here it is, enjoy! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515793

If this was GitHub's doing, it's yet another reason to not use GitHub. Move your repos elsewhere because GitHub thinks that censorship is a good thing.

Unjustified. Why jump into conclusions before official statements are made?

He did explicitly start his sentence with "If".

Indeed, but then proceeded into calling for action: "Move your repositories away..."

This whole thread is great, it's what happens when programmers interpret English.

"Well, was the "Move your repositories..." within the implied closing '}" for the initial if statement or not?"

According to one of the developers, the fault lies with github

http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/2207zd/popcorn_...

He blames the other developers...

> jduncanator (The other dev and the one hosting the site) will have some explanation to do.

Whenever he finally wakes up.

If he ever wakes up...

GitHub has censored before. Their TOS permit them to do it.

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