Flixtor, a popular Popcorn Time-inspired movie streaming application, has shut down after an investigator from the MPAA's Motion Picture Association Canada showed up on the developer's doorstep. The torrent search engine TorrentLookup.com, which was maintained by the same team, was also pulled offline voluntarily.

This weekend the website of the movie torrent streaming application Flixtor suddenly went offline, and the same happened to search engine TorrentLookup.com.

Both projects were run by the same team, which is based in Canada, and were slowly but steadily expanding their user bases. This suddenly changed a few days ago when a message posted on both sites announced that the streaming app and search engine were being discontinued.

“We voluntarily decided to close all services of torrentlookup.com. Thanks to everybody that used Flixtor and bought the mobile version. We have reached the finish line,” a message now displays on both sites.

The decision came as a total surprise to users of the site and app. Flixtor, a custom-built Popcorn Time alternative based on the same Peerflix engine, was just a few weeks old.

The Flixtor app had a user interface similar to Popcorn Time, but was not a fork. Instead, it used its own code and the movies/series API from TorrentLookup.com, which claimed to have the latest releases faster.

Flixtor

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TorrentFreak got in touch with one of the developers, who informed us that the decision to close was the result of movie industry pressure. The developer in question had an investigator from the MPAA-funded Motion Picture Association Canada come by his house, and it didn’t stop there.

“They were annoying me with phone calls repeatedly, and I talked to them quite a few times,” the developer explained.

The movie industry group only had one goal, and that was to shut down the streaming application and the torrent site. The investigator threatened the developer with legal action if he refused to comply.

“They wanted me to close Flixtor/Torrentlookup and then they would drop the charges against me, which are $20,000 per copyrighted file,” the developer told us.

With the threat of a massive lawsuit on their shoulders, the people behind the two projects decided to pull the plug this weekend. Even if they wanted to, they lack the funds to properly defend themselves in court.

The above shows that, behind the scenes, a lot of pressure is being put on the people who operate torrent sites and related services. It may also explain why some sites simply disappear, or why some of the “Popcorn Time” developers ceased their activities.

TorrentFreak contacted the Motion Picture Association Canada for a comment yesterday, but at the time of publication we were yet to receive a response.

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Flixtor has voluntarily closed up shop only months after exploding in growth via a fan base of Internet users who legally dubious areas of the web to find pirated movies and other media content. The site’s founders were also behind TorrentLookup.com and admitted they had no choice but to abandon both projects under pressure from copyright enforcers.

“We voluntarily decided to close all services of TorrentLookup.com. Thank to everybody that used Flixtor and bought the mobile version. We have reached the finish line,” read a message on both home pages.

Unlike traditional BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay or uTorrent, Flixtor charted its course based on the model laid out by Popcorn Time. Popcorn Time, and the wave of sites it inspired, advertises itself as a free alternative to paid video streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu. The attractive idea treads into more dangerous territory, though, when users are forced to consider that many of the free options are in fact copyright films uploaded by any number of pirate sources.

We voluntarily decided to close all services of http://t.co/YhKiR8RJmx. Thanks to everybody that used Flixtor and bought the mobile version.

— Flixtor (@FlixtorApp) June 13, 2014

The succinct homepage updates on Flixtor and TorrentLookup.com didn’t delve into other motivating factors behind the sites’ closing. The swelling user base of each site may have been surprised with the sudden announcement, but one of the developers in question told TorrentFreak the Motion Picture Association Canada (MPAC) – which is funded by the American MPAA – has been sending agents to his home for weeks.

“They were annoying me with phone calls repeatedly, and I talked to them quite a few times,” the anonymous source explained. “They wanted me to close Flixtor/TorrentLookup and then they would drop the charges against me, which are $20,000 per copyrighted file.”

This incident, while not unique, does provide insight into what the so-called “Netflix for pirates” industry might be able to expect in the coming months and years. Popcorn Time itself has had trouble with the entertainment lobby, with multiple downtimes and legal challenges inadvertently spawning Flixtor and other like-minded imitators. Yet the cat-and-mouse game is unlikely to subside, with countless downloaders now on the hunt for a new place to seed the “Game of Thrones” finale or “22 Jump Street.”