Pat Pilcher: Popcorn Time - is history repeating?

When it launched a short while back, movie streaming app Popcorn Time created bit of a splash. Consisting of an elegant interface with neat movie cover graphics and plot synopsis, Popcorn Time provided a simple way to find and stream movies.

Unfortunately, using it could also see users running afoul of the '3 strikes' law, resulting in heavy fines. This said, like most peer-to-peer apps Popcorn Time proved next to impossible to kill-off.

Popcorn Time's original developers ceased work on it after legal wrangling and threats yet Popcorn Time reappeared after a new group picked it up and ran with it.

Now Popcorn Time lives to stream another day.

Popcorn Time is a prime example of what ails the entertainment industry. Legit streaming services are hamstrung by clunky DRM-laden interfaces and dated content, but not so much with Popcorn Time. The real irony is that Popcorn Time makes streaming movies so simple that anyone can do it, even for those who find fiddling about with torrents just too complicated. Popcorn Time simplifies choosing a movie to a one-click affair, something that the entertainment industry has struggled to do as it became tangled in its own red tape.

In short, Popcorn Time highlights a trend that must be pretty worrying for Hollywood - they're being out innovated by pirates.

The entertainment industry isn't so much hamstrung by technology, it's a bunch of out of control lawyers that are stifling and killing an industry. Blaming peer-to-peer technologies is a cop out. Peer-to-peer is an efficient way of shunting large amounts of data around the net. Unlike traditional streaming technologies, performance improves as it scales up. It is also used for a bunch of legitimate apps.

Either way, Popcorn Time is now at the centre of a storm that looks to be a case of history repeating.

Back in the late 90s the music industry was rocked to its core by an app called Napster that made music sharing a point and click affair. Napster was finally shut down, but its legacy lives on. The music industry was eventually forced to accept the inevitable and migrated to a digital platform. Albums became less important as downloads saw singles gain currency. CDs began to die and the rise and rise of subscription-based music services is underway.

Now Popcorn Time could end up doing the same thing for movies. The big question is, will anyone take Popcorn Time and apply it in a commercial setting?

The launch of several streaming services is a good start, but they've got a long way to go before they'll match the convenience, simplicity and elegance of Popcorn Time.

As much as I appreciate the cleverness of Popcorn Time, the need for a workable commercial alternative is very real.

Hollywood needs people to pay to watch movies (they also need to make some decent movies but that's another matter altogether) or they'll go broke and there won't be anywhere near the number of movies that we now take for granted.

Here's hoping the lawyers can get the hell out of the way.