PassThePopcorn (commonly abbreviated PTP) is a private, invitation-only BitTorrent tracker dedicated exclusively to films. The tracker was launched in late 2008 and is among the largest movie-only private trackers on the BitTorrent network.[1][2] It came to the attention of mainstream press in 2016, when a 20th Century Fox employee was prosecuted in U.S. federal court for leaking pre-release screeners of The Revenant and The Peanuts Movie to the site, leading to more than one million downloads of The Revenant and a $1.12 million restitution order against the leaker.[3][4][5]
 | |
Type of site | Private torrent tracker |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| URL | passthepopcorn |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Invitation only |
| Launched | November 2008 (as PassThePopcorn.org) |
| Current status | Active |
History
editFounding and early growth
editPassThePopcorn was launched in November 2008 by an administrator known by the screen name "pham", originally on the domain passthepopcorn.org, and used the open-source Gazelle tracker codebase developed for the music tracker What.CD.[1] The site quickly grew through invitation-only registration, focusing on building a curated archive of film torrents organised by movie rather than by individual release.[1]
Domain transition (2010)
editIn May 2010, PassThePopcorn moved from passthepopcorn.org to its current domain, passthepopcorn.me, after an internal dispute with the site's founder. According to a public statement issued by the remaining staff and reported on at the time by tracker-news outlet FILEnetworks Blog, the founder had controlled the site's servers, IRC infrastructure and donations since launch, and was accused by other staff members of misappropriating donation funds for personal use; in response, the staff purchased new server infrastructure and migrated user accounts, torrents and ratios to the new domain, asking members to update their bookmarks and tracker URLs and to stop using the original domain.[1]
Site features
editPassThePopcorn operates as a seeding ratio-based tracker, with separate categories for feature films, short films, miniseries, stand-up comedy and concerts. Like other Gazelle-based sites, it organises torrents under a single film entry that aggregates multiple encodes by resolution and source.[1] Membership is by invitation only, and registration is closed to the general public.[2]
Notable incidents
editThe Revenant and The Peanuts Movie leaks (2015–2016)
editPassThePopcorn became the focus of national media attention in the United States in 2016 in connection with a high-profile film-piracy case. According to court documents and statements from the United States Department of Justice reported by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood and TorrentFreak, a 31-year-old Lancaster, California man, William Kyle Morarity, obtained DVD screener copies of Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant and The Peanuts Movie while working on a 20th Century Fox studio lot, copied them to a portable drive, and uploaded them to PassThePopcorn under the username "clutchit" in mid-December 2015.[3][4][2][5]
The Revenant was uploaded to the tracker six days before its limited Christmas Day 2015 theatrical release, and from PassThePopcorn it was redistributed to numerous public BitTorrent indexes; over the following six weeks, U.S. authorities estimated that the leaked copy was downloaded more than one million times, with 20th Century Fox claiming losses of at least $1.12 million as a result.[3][2][6]
Following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Morarity entered a guilty plea to felony criminal copyright infringement in February 2016. [2] On 26 September 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced him to eight months of home detention and 24 months of probation, and ordered him to pay $1.12 million in restitution to 20th Century Fox.[3][4] Federal prosecutors had sought a one-year prison sentence; the court accepted defence arguments that house arrest was more appropriate given Morarity's family circumstances, which included a wife and four young children.[4][5] As part of his plea agreement, Morarity also agreed to participate in a public service announcement produced with the U.S. Attorney's Office on the consequences of piracy.[5]
The case was widely reported as a rare instance in which an individual user of a private BitTorrent tracker was identified, prosecuted and held financially liable in U.S. federal court, and was cited by trade publications as a warning to other potential leakers.[4][7][8]
See also
editReferences
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 "PassThePopCorn Is Not Down – Site Has Moved To A New Domain". FILEnetworks Blog. 11 May 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Van der Sar, Ernesto (28 February 2016). "FBI Busts Movie Industry Insider for DVD Screener Leaks". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Lang, Brent (30 September 2016). "Man Who Pirated 'The Revenant' Ordered to Pay $1.1M to 20th Century Fox". Variety. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Cullins, Ashley (27 September 2016). "'The Revenant' Pirate Avoids Prison, Fined $1M". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 D'Alessandro, Anthony (29 September 2016). "'The Revenant' Pirate Escapes Jail, Has To Pay $1.2M To Fox For Uploading Films". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ Reilly, Dirk. "Did The Revenant Pirate Get Off Easy Or Not? I Can't Tell By This Sentence". CinemaBlend. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ Mulshine, Will (2 October 2016). "Pirate Who Leaked The Revenant Screener Has Missed Jail Time But Is Fined $1 Million". Bleeding Cool. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto (30 September 2016). "Man Who Leaked The Revenant Online Fined $1.1m". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 27 April 2026.