Piracy sites YIFY, Popcorn Time shut down

MANILA, Philippines – Popular movie pirate group YTS and illegal movie streaming app Popcorn Time were brought down after the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed lawsuits in their respective countries of operation.

Official news regarding the two movie pirate sites became available on Tuesday, November 3, despite the sites going down two weeks prior.

Variety reported that MPAA filed a suit against the operators of Popcorn Time in Canada on October 9, while a similar suit was filed against YTS in New Zealand on October 12.

“This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft,” said Chris Dodd, MPAA chairman.

The New Zealand Herald reported that the suit against YTS and its operator, YIFY, was settled out of court while sources of Torrent Freak added that the defendants had cooperated with the authorities to minimize the penalties, “possibly to exchange information.”

“Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them,” said Dodd.

Popcorn Time is a BitTorrent client for Windows, OS X, and Android that streams movies from numerous trackers, with fans dubbing it the ‘Netflix of Piracy.’

YTS is a website headed by YIFY that publishes pirated movies, old and new, including those from major film festivals, in high-quality but compressed file sizes. Its library reached 6,000 titles. – Rappler.com