Re:Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk
by wpietri on Sunday April 20, 2014 @12:24PM
(#7617337)
They wouldn't even have to use it themselves. If I understand rightly, "contributory copyright infringement"[1] is the stick they would get beaten with here.
My hazy understanding is that if the Popcorn Time folks had wanted to get away with this, they shouldn't have said anything about Hollywood movies. They should have promoted it as a tool for watching all the great publicly-licensed documentaries and fan-made films out there on the torrent network. That would give them "substantial non-infringing use" [2]. And if somebody else published instructions on how to change the configs so you'd also get Hollywood's finest, well, that wouldn't be their fault. Oopsie!
My hazy understanding is that if the Popcorn Time folks had wanted to get away with this, they shouldn't have said anything about Hollywood movies. They should have promoted it as a tool for watching all the great publicly-licensed documentaries and fan-made films out there on the torrent network. That would give them "substantial non-infringing use" [2]. And if somebody else published instructions on how to change the configs so you'd also get Hollywood's finest, well, that wouldn't be their fault. Oopsie!
[1] http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/question.cgi?Question...
[2] http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Substantial_noninfringing_use