Cotomovies Shutdown (ex Bobby TV apk)

Comotovies shutdown operations recently. For those that do not know, Cotomovies also known as Bobby TV or Bobby Movies in the past, is one of the most popular apk on Android. That’s because it was delivering streaming movies and tv shows on Android devices: from a smartphone to a Firestick or an Android TV OS device like the Nvidia Shield TV. But the sad news are not only that the application has shutdown. For those that are familiar with the scene, it is a fact that for any apk like the Cotomovies Shutdown that goes down, 5 or more will come online. It is what it is and this will never change. The saddest news of all is that the developer seems to be cooperating with the right holders and sharing user data with them. That may pose users at risk!

Cotomovies Developer Sharing Data

If you now visit the official website of Cotomovies the following text will appear:

I want to express my sincere regret to the owners of the motion pictures Hellboy and Angel Has Fallen as well as all rights holders for inducing and contributing to copyright infringements by my operation of the app CotoMovies. From this stressful legal experience, I have learned to appreciate the damage apps such as CotoMovies do to those who invest their time, effort and money to create motion pictures. I now plan to fully respect intellectual property laws and strongly urge those who used my app to use legal apps to watch movies. To this end, I have agreed to transfer to counsel for the rights holders user data and communications under my possession and control so that they can enforce their valuable intellectual property.

So what does that mean? For once what is sure is that Cotomovies has gone and if you already have it installed you are better without it so unistall it immediately. The decision of the developer may pose at risk any user that had experienced that application as well as any collaborator, supporter or whoever may have had a contact with him. But if you are one the cautious users out there, and as always follow the right precautions, you have nothing to fear. Using a secure VPN nowadays is more than recommended. It makes you invisible online and you are protected. And even though Twitter is now having a battle in order to defend or just call the developer a snitch, we can easily understand that no one wants to risk their future over an app. Also seems pretty difficult from a logistics point of view to try and threaten users. These apps usually are used by millions of people, that makes it impossible to actually try and go against them.

Our Opinion Regarding Legal Action Against Devs

We can also not stress enough how dumb is the approach of the Movie Studios and their Legal Advisors to attack developers of such applications like an Android apk or a third party KODI Addon. If one of these cases finally go to a court there is a big chance that they will lose against them. And that is because of two main reasons:

1. These applications or the KODI addons, do not copy, upload or transfer material in any form. They work as search engines, optimized for video and audio files. You cannot call a programmer “pirate”. He never recorded, copied or transferred any video or audio file.
2. And this brings us to the second point. The apps and addons only point to already available material over the internet. Those are the sources and in most cases related to piracy. There are piracy groups that copy, record or even steal copyrighted material and then share to various sources. If Studios really wanted to take a hit on piracy, needless to say, those should have been always the targets. Instead they chose to open a war with hobbyist groups and normal users. Most probably their advisors know that this wrong, but is has it’s advantages. When you deal with real digital pirates, it is a very hard task for you to find them. They use highly sophisticated methods in order to stay invisible and hide their identities. But most importantly, if they hit the source of piracy, this whole industry of “legal advisors” will eventually stay out of work.

As long as you do not go to the root of the problem, the problem will always be there. You may treat a fever with aspirin but if you have an infection, you risk of dying.

Conclusion

In other words, if they really wanted piracy to stop, other than lowering the prices like some companies like Netflix already does, they should have also go after the sources of those copyrighted materials. Instead they leave the sources as is but we all should pretend to be blind. For the normal users out there, I will go forever advising to use a VPN. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you stream content online or not. It is your privacy that should be protected and always sleep safe at night whatever your online activity is: banking, browsing, streaming or gaming.