Two Arrests In Denmark For Spreading Information About Popcorn Time

An anonymous reader writes: You may recall Popcorn Time, the software that integrated torrents with a streaming media player. It fell afoul of the law quite quickly, but survived and stabilized. Now, out of Denmark comes news that two men operating websites related to Popcorn Time have been arrested, and their sites have been shut down. It's notable because the sites were informational resources, explaining how to use the software. They did not link to any copyright-infringing material, they were not involved with development of Popcorn Time or any of its forks, and they didn't host the software. "Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online and are reported to have confessed."

Comments

Thoughtcrime!

[asimons04]

Next, we should go after the language teachers because they facilitate this illegal behavior by teaching people how to read and write. If that doesn't make sense, then you are much smarter than these authority figures because that has about as much to do with committing a crime as what these people have done.

The dog in the manger

[tepples]

So what's the lawful way to view, say, the film Song of the South or the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea? I've never tried Popcorn Time, but I know these works tend to be missing from lawful streaming services' libraries. If there is none, how does this "dog in the manger" mentality "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as one country's constitution puts it?

So arrested for what they think, basically...?

[mark-t]

Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online

That what they were distributing was information on how to break the law is wholly irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is that they were sill ultimately arrested for distributing knowledge... effectively making legislating what people are allowed to even *THINK* about.

How about spreading knowledge of how to murder?

[CODiNE]

Crime shows and heist films are educating bank robbers and future murderers, teaching them how to plan bank robberies and how to hide murders. They even show the process of how the police typically catch other bank robbers and murderers, further educating them on how to avoid police detection. The entire cast of CSI needs to report to the local precinct ASAP.

Re:Confessed?

[Bing Tsher E]

Wow. There's no reverse-Godwins Law, you know. You can't stretch the thread out into infinity by saying ludicrous shit about Hitler.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Half-pint HAL]

What's not valid about your analogy is that peer-to-peer video sharing can be perfectly legal, whereas murder never is. What Popcorn Time needs is a tracker dedicated to fully legal videos -- Max Fleischer out-of-copyright cartoons, the Blender Foundation animations, how-tos on video production etc. P2P has legitimate non-infringing uses, and there should be people focusing on doing that. Consider the amount of genuinely free stuff on PirateBay etc. It's not a notable proportion of the P2P traffic, but it still would be enough to merit its own tracker.