Popcorn Time's app is seen by Netflix as a threat - here's how

We're used to film producers complaining about pirate websites and apps exploiting their movies and costing them money.

Now Netflix has also got a problem with them and has singled out one - Popcorn Time.

In a lengthy letter to shareholders, Netflix made a mention of the site as an example of how piracy continues to be one of its "biggest competitors".

Here's how this particular app is making bosses at Netflix worried.

Popcorn Time is an app which streams films and television programmes using torrents.

According to data from TorrentFreak, a website which specialises in copyright and privacy news, "Popcorn Time is very popular in the UK where it's been installed on hundreds of thousands of computers".

The founder of TorrentFreak, known only as "Ernesto", says the app is particularly threatening "because its easy-to-use user interface appeals to a mainstream audience".

Even though it may be easier to use Popcorn Time compared to other sites for torrent-streaming, it is just as illegal.

"Copyright holders have tried to make the app unavailable several times," says Ernesto.

"The major movie studios pressured the original developers to shut their project down, which they did.

"However, since the code is open source it was quickly picked up by others."

He says Popcorn Time now has a user base of millions worldwide. This supports some Google research identified by Netflix, which shows that, in the Netherlands at least, there has been a dramatic increase of people searching for the title of the app.

Netflix described this data as "sobering".

Netflix has been working to develop its own content, with productions including House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey.

Bosses at the streaming site also identified other legal operations that it perceives as competitors, including HBO Go, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Some users of Netflix in the UK and elsewhere have been trying to use work-arounds to access the US version of the site - which has a different library of video.

Although the company is trying to crack down on these loopholes, they have yet to solve the problem.

Popcorn Time, as an illegal site, doesn't have any rights agreements with studios and producers and does not have to block content on the basis of users' location.

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