The original Popcorn Time is back from the dead — but nobody knows who’s running it

Reformatted and corrected for grammar issues, since this seems like a case of "English isn't his first language":

The following does not reflect the opinions of the editor, only that of wallydz

Hello, I see many people here are already playing the role of MPAA, investigating and pointing fingers at people, including old .io team. I am here again to say I am not involved, I did not take credit for the .io fork, and I won't start now. Yes, those who pointed fingers in the past were just looking for fame.

For the new .sh, as far as I am concerned it is another fork of the .io and as long as they stay open source I will have nothing against them. What I am seeing from this drama is that people are just helping out the MPAA by pointing fingers everywhere on everyone. This is just silly... My advice to all Popcorn Time developers, it is not worth risking your life for people who try put you into deeper shit. Users, you can enjoy your Popcorn time now, or you just get a Netflix subscription.

EDIT: I can understand Bloggers (Journalists) trying to understand more, but when I see the community or old developers trying to snitch on anyone who worked on Popcorn Time, it just a shame. I wouldn't advise anyone to start working on Popcorn Time in this situation.

PS: Again, I deny any involvement into this mess, or drama, or whatever you call it. The encryption keys we are talking about has been the Project key since the 0.3.x release. Anyone working on the old project could have it, including some of those who pointed fingers at me, or some old member who has left the team.

EDIT 2: Let me recap the history of Popcorn Time .io:

  • 2014 March/April: I had just the task of making NW work with all codecs
  • 2014 June to September: one of the team members who had managed servers, coding, etc started to think he was a god while actually doing nothing. I am pretty sure many developers or ex-developers will remember who. I am not naming anyone or pointing any fingers. Also, we got suspended from Github, so we needed to switch to private a private git solution. He switched us to some commercial git server...
  • 2014 September: The guy in question vanished, leaving the users with broken TV API, so i had to take care of the TV API + update NW + secure servers left without an admin + put in place a mail server + switch the git sever to Gitlab and maintain it + get Travis CI to build from this Gitlab + maintain the server
  • Start of 2015: I worked on almost everything except the coding part. Some people were just bragging about some imaginary new Popcorn Time, while others were doing a great job

In the end what did I see? Those who were actually doing not doing big things, or just answering emails (only when they please) are now pointing fingers to the one who preferred to stay on the boat and keep safe, those who were not sued by MPAA. I certainly do not want be part of a new Popcorn Time, and meet the new people who will just act the same as before.

About VPN.ht: this was the only solution we had to introduce the concept of VPNs and to teach people that Internet is not that safe for things related to copyright infringement. This was to make a built-in VPN. If any one noticed that we forced any single user to use it, please let me know, as from day one we said this built-in was to help people stay safe without extra knowledge. If someone already knew what is a VPN and how does it work, I am pretty sure he would not think about purchasing another VPN subscription. Also some of developers, and also some users asked: why not make it free? I am sorry guys, but we are not living in a wonderland; we cannot afford to pay for more servers than what we were already paying for Popcorn Time. (Strangely, no one noticed that we were paying for servers for a year from our personal money, and here I am talking about only 2 developers from the entire group)

And speaking about MPAA: those guys are just bunch of lawyers who think Popcorn Time is a P2P Server, and as if we actually hosting one... they do not care about the technology, or concept, all what they care about is how to intimidate people.
For me they are just a bunch of guys who use any kind of intimidation to get to their goal. If they were able to do so legally, they would just seize official domains and all what is related to PCT .io all at once without playing the cat and mouse with them. Now for the users who worry about their safety: I totally understand this problem, so I suggest that you trust only those who play it OPEN. Don't misunderstand me, I don't mean just Open source! Any Popcorn Time fork should show technical users how they could actually build it and use the same build as on their main webpage.

Anyway all of this is just a disappointment more than anything else.

/r/PopCornTime Thread Parent Link - thenextweb.com