A few weeks ago, Aptoide was sued by two movie companies: TBV Productions, LLC and Hunter Killer Productions, Inc who are behind the movies “I Feel Pretty” and “Hunter Killer” respectively, for helping massive piracy. According to the complaint, the company specifically induces, encourages and promotes the use of the Showbox and Popcorn Time app for blatant copyright infringement. “Plaintiffs bring this action to stop the massive piracy of their motion pictures brought on by the software applications Show Box app and Popcorn Time,” the complaint reads. TBV Productions, LLC, and Hunter Killer Productions, Inc are the plaintiffs in the case filed, while Aptoide is the defendant. Popcorn Time and Showbox are popular apps that allow users to watch free movies and TV shows on their devices. Both of these apps support BitTorrent streaming and are designed to help users easily watch pirated content. The Showbox website describes the Showbox app as, “all you’ll ever need to watch movies and tv shows for free” and “The app supports torrent downloads…” On the other hand, Popcorn Time on the Popcorn Time website is described as, “watch the latest TV shows and movies anytime, anywhere” and “The legendary app lets you stream and watch movies and TV shows for free…” Further, according to Aptoide’s stats, the Showbox app has been downloaded between 5- 25 million times, while Popcorn Time has been downloaded between 500,000 – 3 million times, indicating that these two websites are great sources to get free movies. Additionally, Aptoide has also marked both apps as “Trusted” which means that they are “100% safe.” According to the movie companies, this is an endorsement of piracy by Aptoide and that it is promoting the apps for infringing uses. “Defendant Aptoide promotes Popcorn Time and the Show Box app overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, for purposes of infringing Copyright protected content, including Plaintiffs’,” they write. The rights holders demanded statutory damages that could go up to $150,000 per work for the alleged infringing activities, as well as an injunction to stop Aptoide from offering these apps to the public. Apparently, Aptoide has already removed the apps from its marketplace, as Showbox and Popcorn Time URLs now return an error. “We could not find the App you are looking for. Try to use the search form above to find your App,” the error reads. Following the legal action by the movie companies, a motion to dismiss the case against Aptoide was submitted later suggesting that it wanted to resolve the matter. Apparently, the concerned parties “have resolved” the matter now, according to the filing.
