I've just downloaded it after someone suggested it to me and when I wanted to download a show a message appeared: "You are being monitored". I did some research and found out it's illegal to download from Popcorn Time in other countries but the Swiss law sais that if it's only for personal use and the material itself isn't illegal (like childpornography) it's perfectly legal. I want to be safe though, the fine would be 160 swiss francs if it'd be illegal and I don't want to pay that. Can anyone confirm it's legal to download movies and series' without a VPN in Switzerland?
Oh I'm aware of that, but if streaming the series' would be legal they wouldn't do anything, even if they'd find out right?
The message is default and best to be ignored inhere.
Using a VPN has nothing to do with something being illegal or not.
Using popcorn time is as legal as any other streaming device or p2p client.
And the Swiss don't care if you download movies and series for your own use.
"Worst" thing happening is your ISP sending along a letter from someone who claims to own the rights, when you receive such you laugh, throw it away and continue downloading since the authorities and the ISP will do nothing against you since you break no laws, but for some reason they sometimes send such letter
That made me laugh, I guess I was way too paranoid then, thank you!
Right, thank you for the reply, I seriously didn't want any legal problems but I'll take your guys' word on it!
We know a friend using a KODI box several times a week since Xmas to stream movies/tv shows etc - plus live streams of Sky Sports etc and he has never had an issue with his ISP (hope I don't jinx it!). Prior to that he was also a heavy PopCornTime and BitTorrent user...again no issues. I don't think you have anything to worry about....
For the purpose of this thread streaming is just a synonym for you downloading only. VPN has nothing to do with il/legality, it just makes your traffic unreadable for outsiders. But you'll be visible to all other Popcorn Time (PT) clients, which makes the VPN almost useless.
Generally speaking:
i) downloading music and movies for private use is legal
ii) downloading software is illegal
iii) uploading any of the three is illegal
the exception to the above: The copyright holder may allow more than the legal minimum mentioined above, but not less.
Torrents use P2P networks. P2P clients by design upload and download. While you can block uploads with some P2P clients, that's usually useless because your download will most always be reduced to a trickle.
PT uses torrents. It's unclear whether your download is streamed to you or not, but since it's free it's most probably just ordinary P2P download. Which means you most probably also upload in return.
Therefor usage of PT is probably illegal.
Well then let's hope it is legal since I've already watched 3 episodes of Z nation
I'll only use it for a few episodes of a series. Let's hope luck is on my side
I think you are mistaking a VPN service for encryption.
VPN (tho it can go hand in hand with encryption) assures you shows an IP to the outside world that is in no way to be traced back to you if the VPN keeps no logs.
VPN is the most simple way to go when people want to remain anonymous while filesharing. And encryption is only to avoid middleman like your ISP to have a look inside your packages.
No, actually, Urs Max had it right in layman’s terms. You’re right that encryption is different from VPNs, and it’s hypothetically possible to have a VPN without encryption... but I’ve never seen one. One of the myriad possible uses for a VPN is to hide the source of the traffic, but that’s far from the only or even most common use case.
You can groan as you please VPN and encryption even they often go hand in hand are still completely different things.
And never seen VPN's without encryption... Well i am using one to see football.
I'm aware they're different things, but like Corbets I've not seen one yet that wasn't encrypted. So for the purpose of this thread I think it's Ok to lump the two together.
With that said, the software is open source so feel free to check.
The "You are being monitored" message was not from your ISP nor any legal authorities.
VPN websites places ads on all sorts of places where file sharing/streaming is available.
Its a scare tactic to make you purchase their services and prey on victims who don't have much knowledge.
If ISPs and authorities were able to send real time messages to everyone who is downloading then it would be like Gods Eye from Fast and Furious.
Let' stick to that.
For p2p purposes people take whatever commercial VPN service they run into on the web, and those indeed are all encrypted.
If they also want to upload i'd suggest grabbing a non-logging VPN provider, better safe then sorry.
While I suppose you could turn off the encryption in a VPN (if a certain madness took hold of you), you'd better call it something else. The 'P' stands for 'private', and that requires encryption.
OP you should download the source and build it yourself, many of the ready to install versions contain software which let Uncle Sam and others spy on you, more than just which movies you watched...
The instruction how to build is right on the front page of the repo
https://github.com/PopcornTimeCommunity/desktop
You are being naive here. If you pay attention, this message is just an internal advertisement for VPN services.
Don't worry, Popcorn time is just user-friendly navigator for torrent, so no problem in Switzerland.